No one thinks that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the nominee, but what of the idea that he will take 15 per cent in any closed primary, and at least double that in Massachusetts, out of dynastic loyalty?
Ted Kennedy could not win the nomination against Jimmy Carter as long ago as 1980, and even in unison with John Kerry and Deval Patrick, he could not persuade the Bay State's Democrats to prefer Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton in 2008.
Even the sort of voters to whom the whole Kennedy thing is supposed to appeal are far less commonly Democrats these days. They are a much smaller proportion of the electorate at large. And more than half of them were not born when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, 55 years ago. What do the Kennedys mean to anyone under 70?
He's becoming something of a blank canvas, project anything you like onto him.
ReplyDeleteUp to a point, that did for his father and for his father's elder brother, but only because they were cut down in their prime. It did not do for the younger uncle, who was a political fixture for half a century. Nor will it do for a man with a more obscure, but a no less extensive, back catalogue.
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