In 1968, Senator Eugene McCarthy challenged Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination and ran a close second in the New Hampshire primary. The near upset by McCarthy, a Minnesota progressive, helped convince Johnson that he should not run for re-election, opening the way for Robert F. Kennedy. History might have been very different if tragedy hadn’t intervened that June at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
Could a similar scenario (minus any violence) unfold again, with President Biden in the role of L.B.J., Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the role of McCarthy, and a more credible Democrat than Kennedy in the role of his dad, ultimately winning the nomination?
There are good reasons to doubt it. There are also good reasons to wish for it — which is why I find myself in the weird position of cheering a candidate whose politics I detest and whose grip on reality I question.
Among the reasons for doubt: Kennedy is a crank. His long-held anti-vaccine views sit poorly with most Democrats. He has said the C.I.A. killed his uncle and possibly his father, that George W. Bush stole the 2004 election, and that Covid vaccines are a Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci self-enrichment scheme. He repeats Kremlin propaganda points, like the notion that the war in Ukraine is actually “a U.S. war against Russia.” He has nice things to say about Tucker Carlson.
Further reason: We aren’t living in 1968, or even 1967. Thousands of draftees aren’t being killed in a faraway war. Liberals have come to like Biden more during his presidency, whereas they came to like Johnson a lot less. McCarthy was a serious man who had held a high office for nearly 20 years when he challenged Johnson. Kennedy’s a princeling activist with a troubled past who has never held elected office.
Also, the prospect of Donald Trump back in the White House focuses the mind in a way not even the prospect of a Nixon presidency did. Many Democrats may have quietly wanted Biden to step aside instead of run. Now that he’s running, the safe call seems to be to rally behind him, lest a challenger help sink his chances. That’s what another Kennedy, Teddy, helped do to another Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter, in 1980.
But what if it isn’t the safe call? What if the 15 percent to 20 percent of the Democratic voters who support Kennedy, according to recent polls, are sending some messages other voters need to hear — and not because they are drawn to conspiratorial nonsense?
The most obvious message is one that too many Democrats want to wish away: Biden is a weak candidate against almost any Republican, including Trump, and he’s probably even weaker with Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Sixty-six percent of registered voters think Biden is too old to be president and 59 percent have doubts about his mental fitness, according to a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll conducted last week. Sixty-three percent think the economy is on the “wrong track.” Thirty-three percent of voters cite inflation as their chief concern; only 19 percent cite guns and 11 percent women’s rights. If an election were held now, Harris found, Trump would get 45 percent of the vote to Biden’s 39 percent (with 15 percent undecided). Trump’s federal indictment seems to have barely made a dent.
These numbers are terrible — and that’s despite declining inflation and rock-bottom unemployment. What happens to Biden’s candidacy if the economy takes a turn for the worse in the next 12 months, or a foreign adversary springs its own version of the Tet offensive on the administration?
There’s a second, more powerful message implicit in Kennedy’s candidacy: a profound undercurrent of discontent with a party that is losing touch with its once-powerful, even dominant, populist roots. This is the party whose base has substantially shifted from the high school- to the college-educated; from factory floors and service jobs to breakout rooms on Zoom; from champions of free speech to promoters of speech codes and trigger warnings; from questioning authority (including scientific authority) to offering — and demanding — unblinking fidelity to it.
The spirit of rebellion in America today now rests mainly on the Republican side. It may be the ultimate reason for Trump’s enduring, even outlaw, appeal.
Which is why Kennedy’s candidacy is resonating more widely than nearly anyone expected. As with Trump in 2015, the media is treating his message “literally, but not seriously,” to borrow the political reporter Salena Zito’s important insight. His supporters may be doing just the opposite: taking him seriously for being the voice of revolt, irrespective of how they feel about his specific views.
Will this be enough to deny Biden the nomination? Probably not. Then again, not many political observers in 1967 saw what was coming. There’s an unfulfilled hunger for a liberal leader who can capture Kennedy’s spirit without his folly.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
