Recently, you’ve most likely been asking your self: What does it imply that Nicole Shanahan has been chosen as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s operating mate?
OK, possibly not.
I do know, you’ve received a full and busy life. Nonetheless, the Shanahan factor is sorta severe. Let’s focus on.
R.F.Okay. Jr. is, as everyone knows, operating for president as an impartial — an effort that can additional publicize his anti-vaccination views and maybe present some extent to his life.
Shanahan, a lawyer who has by no means gained elective workplace, is notable for being actually, actually wealthy. She’s a billionaire, due to her five-year marriage to Sergey Brin, one of many founders of Google. Many people first heard of her when she put $4 million towards financing a Tremendous Bowl advert for Kennedy that superimposed his face on some clips selling his assassinated uncle. Which drove his siblings additional into the arms of President Biden, the current host of a White Home St. Patrick’s Day occasion that included a mega-Kennedy visitor record.
“Almost each single grandchild of Joe and Rose Kennedy helps Joe Biden,” R.F.Okay. Jr.’s youthful sister Kerry stated in a speech just a few weeks after the gathering.
In lots of presidential contests, a third-party candidate like Kennedy wouldn’t make a distinction. Each 4 years, individuals you’ve by no means heard of handle to get themselves on the presidential poll in a single state or one other. By no means works — the final time we had a president who wasn’t affiliated with both the Democratic or the Republican Social gathering was Millard Fillmore, who was the vice-presidential nominee of the Whig Social gathering and received to be president in 1850 when Zachary Taylor died from supposedly consuming too many cherries and consuming an excessive amount of milk at a Fourth of July celebration.
Do admire the singular second each 4 years once we can discover a approach to focus on that killer cherries story.
Anyhow, one factor you shouldn’t have to fret about is watching a second President Kennedy being sworn in subsequent 12 months. It’s gonna be Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
I do know, I do know. Cease moaning. That’s the large downside right here. How many individuals will vote for R.F.Okay. Jr. as a protest towards the true decisions?
That is the Third Social gathering Thwack. The candidates can’t win, however they’ll screw issues up for one of many actual contenders. Most well-known, in fact, was Ralph Nader’s bid in 2000, which helped give us George W. Bush for president as a substitute of Al Gore. In 2016, Hillary Clinton might need gained Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — and her race towards Trump — if the Inexperienced Social gathering candidate, Jill Stein, hadn’t been on the poll, draining away a number of the individuals who needed to vote for a lady.
Kennedy backers say they’ve already ticked off sufficient bins to qualify for the poll in a number of states, together with deeply vital Michigan. He would possibly even elbow his manner into the presidential debate subsequent month. Ultimately, there’ll be a bunch of bodily health tales that juxtapose footage of Trump on the golf course, Biden on the seaside and the well-muscled R.F.Okay. Jr. doing push-ups. If voters determine they need a president who can welcome overseas dignitaries on the White Home bare from the waist up, he’s positively your man.
Shanahan shouldn’t be any individual you’d usually think about as a vice-presidential decide. She wed a tech investor who filed to annul the union after 27 days. She’s denied stories that her marriage with Brin broke up after she had a fling with Elon Musk. Any person’s going to work all that right into a debate query.
The issue right here is that Shanahan can use her fortune to underwrite a giant presidential drive by Kennedy. Who already has a super-famous title, a superb document for environmental work and a son who as soon as dated Taylor Swift.
However, in fact, he’s by no means held workplace or run a significant group, and he’s carried out little, if something, to show political prowess; his followers put his title in for nomination on the Libertarian Social gathering conference on Sunday, and he gained about 2 % of the vote. A few of his positions — notably on abortion rights — are cloudy at greatest.
In current nationwide polls, Kennedy’s gotten round 16 % of voter assist, however there’s good cause to consider a really large chunk of that got here from people who simply needed to protest the Biden and Trump choices. Individuals, this can be a dangerous, dangerous concept. Voting for an impartial candidate in a presidential contest doesn’t make you principled. It makes you a citizen who cares extra about trying cool and above all of it than about collaborating in the true democratic course of.
The 2-party system helps carry the nation collectively, and it’s going to be notably vital this 12 months. Voters must consider the winner truly gained, and that’s robust sufficient when one of many candidates doesn’t acknowledge any election as correct until he comes out on prime.
