RFK Jr. 'looking at' being Libertarian Party candidate

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

Independent Presidential candidate RFK Jr. says he would seal the border and "we need a quicker path to citizenship." And while he says "we won't have any problem getting on the ballot," he's "looking at" being the Libertarian Party candidate.


Read more: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/01/27/smr-rfk-jr-on-his-third-party-challenge.cnn

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. It is hard to get onto the ballot without being the nominee of a party who has qualified in the past

I remember that Kanye spent a ton of money and only got onto a limited number of state ballots

Link to tweet

[TheBlackAdder]

31. Trump VP? He's probably assessing the fastest way to ascend to the presidency, knowing Trump won't last four years.

He'll be a great spoiler in the Libertarian Party, but he'll probably entertain a Trump VP slot too.

[Lunabell]

2. What a slap in the face to his father and uncle.

How does one fall so far down a rabbit hole?

[bucolic_frolic]

3. His grandfather was no slouch

He was an international businessman as they were known in the day, Chairman of the SEC, Ambassador to Great Britain. He opposed FDR's 3rd term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy_Sr.

Kennedy and Roosevelt
The Uneasy Alliance
Michael Beschloss

[Voltaire2]

11. Also quite simply a gangster.

But yeah he spent wisely on cleaning up the family name and finances.

[SouthBayDem]

24. What would you say about Ted's 1980 primary challenge to President Carter?

Back then Ted Kennedy got 38% of the primary vote, at a time when President Carter’s approval ratings were declining due to a bad economy and the hostage crisis.

[Lunabell]

41. Apples and oranges.

Ted wasn't a lunatic.

[SouthBayDem]

45. He would've been a walking opposition research dossier in the '80 general

because Chappaquiddick was still in recent memory, and wasn't he notorious back then for his weaknesses for booze and bimbos?

[Lunabell]

47. So, you know Ted Kennedy's mind.

And what he would be today. That's pretty presumptuous to know a dead man's thoughts. Also, pretty much every man in poiltical power in the 60's and 70's had a penchant for booze and "bimbos", he just got caught. Besides Jimmy Carter, name one that didn't.

[homegirl]

28. Rose his fathers sister

had severe mental issues. Was finally confined to an institution. DNA lurks, and now we see it!

[Mosby]

35. She was institutionalized because doctors cut out part of her brain

Because the doctors consensus at the time said that lobotomies were a legitimate treatment, and if Joe and his wife Rose wanted to help their daughter they should let doctors chop up her brain. If CPS existed at the time they would have probably threatened to take away their daughter if this accepted treatment wasn't performed. She could kill herself, the social workers counseled.

Unfortunately the quack treatment didn't work out too well, she couldn't speak or walk properly after her frontal lobes were separated from the rest of her brain, so she had to be put in an institution because she couldn't take care of herself.

[ificandream]

4. Caroline Kennedy Schollsberg doesn't like him either.

Giving away my age, I fondly remember the pics of her as a little girl playing with her dad.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[DemocraticPatriot]

15. I saw the pics long after the fact, but her and John Jr.

were just a few years older than me....

I was 11 mos at the time of the assassination

[DFW]

19. My dad's cousin was her tutor in the WH.

She is now 92, and still going strong in DC, as is her husband, who, at 96, look 25 years younger.

[BlueMTexpat]

21. LOL, I had to reread

your post before I realized that the "she" who is 92 refers to your cousin, NOT CKS! I am apparently not fully awake yet.

Having been a college senior on that horrific day when JFK was murdered, I knew that CKS could NOT be 92 since even I am not at that venerable age yet.

What a lovely connection you have to one of my all-time heroes!

[DFW]

22. I never met JFK

My dad and RFK, Sr. were good friends. Pierre Salinger lived near us, and my dad asked him for a favor early in 1963. Salinger was able to comply with my dad’s request, and on my 11th birthday, I got an autographed photo of JFK made out to me personally. I still have that photo, in its original frame, here in my house in Germany.

[ificandream]

27. I lived in Massachusetts and had a chance to see JFK in a parade when he was Senator.

I opted to go to a Three Stooges movie instead. Boy do I regret that.

I did see RFK campaigning days before he was assassinated. Very profound speech. I had to stand in the middle of a bush to see him. Never forget the spotlight behind his head illuminating him. Wish I had a picture of that.

Also saw Teddy at a ceremony in California.

[DFW]

29. I saw JFK speak at the opening of Dulles Airport in Reston, VA in 1963

But that was as close as I ever got. My dad and RFK became good friends after he was elected Senator from NY, so I met him several times, even was a schoolmate of Joe and Bobby, Jr. in DC for a year. I saw Teddy speak at the Denver convention in 2008, when Obama was nominated, but never got the chance to meet him. RFK once signed a photo, saying, "to (my dad), with high regard." I still have that one, too. I used to think it was a big deal to have a similar photo of FDR made out to "his friend," my grandfather, but I later found out that he used to do that a lot, way more than other presidents did. Still, it is in his handwriting, and not everyone's grandfather got one. My family's Democratic roots go back a couple of generations!

[Raftergirl]

30. My college roommate was in Caroline's nursery school class at the WH. And Caroline was at her

sister’s birthday party when JFK was killed.

[DFW]

32. Who knows? My dad's cousin might have interacted with your roommate as well!

I wouldn't know, but it's not impossible.

[Raftergirl]

37. It's quite likely, actually. IIRC, there were only about 5-6 kids in the nursery school and Caroline was still in

nursery at the time of JFK’s assassination.

My roommate’s sister (whose birthday party it was) also was dating John John (which is what they still called him then) when he was in high school at Collegiate (can’t remember which private school the sister was at) when we were Freshman. Iirc, it didn’t last long. My roommate went to boarding school in CT and her best friend was Nelson Rockefeller’s granddaughter, who was at the same boarding school. She came and stayed with us a few times and you would never know she was from a billionaire’s family.

[DFW]

46. I met Rocky" a few times, too

My dad knew him well, as his job required him to meet frequently with whoever was Governor of New York, starting with Dewey. I still have a photo of me and Rockefeller, with me in a traditional Russian folklore shirt and a guitar when a balalaika-playing friend and I were hired to play for him and Gerry Ford at a reception at the National Press Club in Washington. That was a different era on another planet! I never met any of his granddaughters, but by 1975, I had already known my future wife for a year, and my social life was already totally focused on trying to make that bond permanent, something of which she was far from convinced at that point. With half the guys in northern Germany chasing after her, and me still living in America, it was an uphill battle. I finally won out, but it was not a free ride by any means!

[Rhiannon12866]

48. My Dad met then-Governor Rockefeller, too.

As president of the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce, he worked with the governor on promoting tourism, as if Saratoga needed it. One of the issues was promoting the "baths" which was one of the first reasons for tourists to visit a couple of centuries ago. When I was a kid, I had a button that my Dad came up with which said "Had a bath lately?" My Dad had a sense of humor.

[Raftergirl]

49. I went to the baths once about 30 years ago.

I felt like I had walked into an insane asylum! I also couldn’t stand the smell.

I do love going to the races, we usually go a few times during the meet and to SPAC a few times each summer.

My husband has worked for every Governor since Mario. He worked the longest and closest to Andrew, who made his life (and by extension mine) a living hell until he retired in July 2020. Dealing with the pandemic and the administration was going to kill him if he didn’t retire. Thankfully he had his 30 years so could retire with full pension.

[twodogsbarking]

23. Caroline still number one on my list of people I would like to meet.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. The Libertarian Party has a long and storied history

(including conventions - I remember actually watching the one when Bob Barr (former R GA-7) was on their ticket for President in 2008 after a bunch of rounds of voting. As a 3rd party, they probably pick up the most votes among the pile (which usually includes Green Party and often Constitution Party).

I can't see them suddenly welcoming him with open arms.

[heckles65]

6. Gotta love how

libertarians effectively "find Jesus," and concoct a reverse-engineered reason why the usually grasping and incompetent government should come between employment seeking immigrants and labor seeking employers.

[pnwmom]

7. Why would someone posing as an ENVIRONMENTALIST ever run as a Libertarian?

What a whack job.

[DemocraticPatriot]

14. It would probably be better for us if he did,

rather than on his own new independent party.....

Why would a Democrat pose vaxx conspiracies, it goes on and on... there is no figuring him out,
but I'd rather see him on an established right-wing party ballot
than on an additional "new party" ballot line...

[pnwmom]

17. No, it wouldn't, and here is the reason why.

The Libertarian party is already qualified for a line on the ballot. If he were to run on his own, he'd have to get qualified personally in 50 states, which would be much harder.

[keithbvadu2]

8. Delusional and self-important, like Ralph Nader.

[LeftInTX]

9. Go for it! People think he's a Democrat

Polls show him sucking votes from Biden, not Trump

[Demsrule86]

12. Democrats won't vote for a Libertarian. I see some in Freeper land suggesting that Kennedy

could be Trump's VP...He is not a Democrat...and is completely unprincipled.

[LeftInTX]

13. That's why he should do it! Kennedy has got 15% in the last poll. Trump has 45%

Cornel West and Green eats up another 5%. This leaves Biden at 35%

[pnwmom]

18. He's just as likely to take votes from some misinformed Democrats

who were misled by the Kennedy name, or the supposed concern he has for the environment or his anti-vax views.

[LiberalFighter]

34. I think he would likely take votes from the Republican side.

[pnwmom]

36. All those Republicans who loved Ted and John Kennedy or care about the environment?

Unfortunately, there are some nutty progressives who appreciate his nutty vaccine views, too.

[LiberalFighter]

38. Yes. But were those nutty progressives going to vote Biden? Did they vote for him in 2020?

[Randomthought]

10. The only thing RFK, Jr should be looking at

Is a straight jacket

[mucifer]

26. I think it's greed. Someone is paying him.

[byronius]

16. He's looking for highest bidder --

— on his sellout tour, heading down.

[DFW]

20. Money looking for relevance

It often wastes the first while never achieving the second.

That won’t stop Bobby from doing some damage if he can manage it, but it will never make him more than one of history’s many forgotten footnotes.

He would have done the world (and himself) a lot more good if he had remained a professor of environmental law at Pace. Apparently, he was appreciated there. My daughter went to Pace Law while he taught there, although she rarely saw him, as she was studying international law—a wise choice, as it turned out. He spoke at graduation, and seemed compos mentis at the time, although that was 14 years ago.

[Bucky]

25. a 'roid-rager is a perfect choice to lead the Party of No Regulation

[LiberalFighter]

33. Have to wonder who he has as friends.

[womanofthehills]

43. He has 8 kids - including Cheryl's daughter

And most of them work with him. His campaign manager is now his daughter in law.

[madinmaryland]

39. The Librarian Party. I don't think they would want him an anti-vaxxer on their ticket.

Or any anti-intelligent stuff.

[Jose Garcia]

42. A lot of them are anti-vax and anti-mask

I think that his economic policies are what would keep the Libertarians away from him.

[madinmaryland]

44. Oh sorry. I thought this was about librarians. I need to wear my glasses more often.

[prodigitalson]

40. how fun for him