Can a new Kennedy become president of the United States?

Published in Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper, December 16, 2023

Translated into English:

American presidential elections are usually a classic dilemma. But Robert F Kennedy Jr is far from the only one trying profile itself as a third force in politics ahead of the US election in 2024.

"There is a demand from a large group of voters who want an alternative to Biden and Trump. Considering unimaginable dissatisfaction, a third candidate should rightfully so
resources and the right support go quite far," says John Ellis, long-time conservative journalist and commentator, himself related with the Bush clan, who now run the podcast "News item".

Admittedly, experience says that it is impossible for independent candidates to break the two-party system. Nobody has winning a single state since George Wallace
connected the grip on the South in 1968. No one has even been in closest to an electoral success since billionaire Ross Perot got 19 percent in the 1992 presidential election.

But because the margins in key wave-master states are so small, a candidate can gain great importance, even if he or she only conquering a few percentage points […] The commentator John Ellis has not been involved in anything similar during all his years in politics. About the 2024 election year reminds of anything, it is the fateful year 1968, when Robert F Kennedy the elder was assassinated.

"Then you felt that everything was about to fall apart. It is same moods now", he says. "That speaks against the unattached candidates getting big in surface is that it is difficult and cumbersome to qualify for the presidential elections in the various states.

The other day, the Reuters news agency reported that a political committee, American values 2024, bets 15 million dollars on to get Kennedy on the ballots in ten key states—
Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Texas.

"If Bobby manages to join, I think he is more of a threat to Biden than Trump. I could be wrong, but I don't think so are the conspiracy theories or the anti-vaccine that beckon. I
think it's the Kennedy name that carries the heaviest weight," says John Ellis.

Some political analysts warn that independence candidates like Kennedy can create particular chaos in the election 2024.

American elections are decided by the so-called electors from the states. The candidate who receives 270 electoral votes wins. If no one reaches 270, because it weighs exactly the same between two candidates or because a third candidate conquered some of the electoral votes, then the House of Representatives gets to choose the winner. Each state delegation has one vote.

Then the Republicans can win - "but only after political chaos, scores of lawsuits and complaints about a stolen election,” notes Merril Matthews who is associated with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas.

At the nightclub in Annapolis, the Kennedy campaign talks regional leaders on how Robert F Kennedy Jr was denied privacy by the Biden administration. The spectators boo.

Who can fail to associate the name Kennedy with evil urgency death?
Robert F Kennedy Jr clearly believes in conspiracies about The Kennedy assassinations - that the CIA was behind it the shots at the uncle in 1963 and that there was more than one shooter involved in the attempt on the father in 1968.

- He is very smart. He is very complicated. It plays no matter what he says, or how bizarre, crazy or complete wrong it is, he believes it. He's not making things up, says Mike Barnicle, a political commentator and ally of The Kennedy clan, to the Washington Post.

There is probably no Camelot in 2024, just a lone knight and his birds of prey.
In Annapolis, Robert F Kennedy Jr reveals the trick to keep the falcons. It's about food. To weigh the birds and hold again on the food.

- If you keep them a little hungry, you can train them to return.