RFK Jr.'s bizarre campaign that ended with a Trump endorsement further illustrates decline of the Kennedy brand
The Kennedy legend has lost a lot of its luster. Camelot, it ain’t.
The embarrassing run for the White House by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which ended last week, was a vivid reminder of that. RFK Jr. departed the race after a failed attempt to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, followed by a quixotic campaign as an independent. When he dropped out on Friday, he endorsed former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
The Kennedy Clan was always known for its deep roots and powerful connections in the Democratic Party. Bobby Jr., with his stories of brain worms and dead bears plucked off a road, was just an ambitious man with no real chance at the White House. He grasped at whatever straw was in the wind.
It wasn’t that way in the past.
In the 1960s and ’70s, the Kennedys were American royalty. That was partially due to their success and celebrity, their good looks and wealth, and the tragedy that stalked them and often forced them to pay a dear price, leaving the family and millions of Americans in tears.
But those days are gone, and that feeling has largely faded. There are no Kennedys in prominent national roles, and none on the horizon. The legend drew to a close 15 years ago this week, a decade after a promising new start came to a sudden, and sadly typical, end, and 40 years after a tragic event clouded their legacy.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, the liberal lion from Massachusetts, died on Aug. 25, 2009. Brain cancer felled Ted Kennedy at 77, ending a political career that lasted far longer than his two older brothers.
“True Compass,” Kennedy’s posthumously published autobiography, is a surprisingly readable book, filled with political tales, humor and pathos. Sen. Kennedy reflected on his life and career, his family and their triumphs and tragedies, and his own successes and failures, both professional and personal.
He agreed to write the book before he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of cancer that attacks the brain. It was the same cancer that would kill Sen. John McCain nine years later to the day. Although Kennedy was a liberal Democrat and McCain a conservative Republican, they often worked together, back in an era when politicians were willing to put country over party, the nation’s good ahead of fleeting political advantage.
Ted Kennedy’s life, both public and private, caused people to take firm stances for or against him. Some adored his stances for health care, civil rights, abortion rights and the environment, while others disagreed with him on those issues, while also opposing him on school busing, the ongoing struggles in Northern Ireland, gay and lesbian rights and myriad other stances.
His personal life also made him a target. Like his father Joe Kennedy, a millionaire investor and onetime ambassador to Great Britain, and his brothers, he enjoyed beautiful women and a fast-paced lifestyle (patriarch Joe is seen above with John F. at the upper left and Robert F., Sr., at the far left in the public domain 1930s photo above, as posted on wikimedia commons).
While the elder Kennedy and his sons Joe Jr., John and Bobby lived, loved and died before their private behavior became public, Ted Kennedy was famous in an era when his faults were front and center. As he partied, pursued women and gained weight, cameras clicked away and tongues clucked.
His greatest personal failure, the death of Mary Jo Kopeneche in a driving accident in Chappaquiddick Island on July 18, 1969 — which marked a grim 55th anniversary this year — remains the largest shadow on his legacy. In his book, Kennedy sticks to the story he crafted with a team of advisers after the fatal accident, claiming he was merely giving the young blonde a ride back to her motel from a beach party on the isle when his car plunged off a narrow bridge.
Kennedy said he tried to save her, but admits he has no excuse for abandoning her in the sunken car for hours before contacting authorities. It cost Kopeneche her life, and very possibly cost him a chance to be president.
He did try once, running against President Jimmy Carter for the 1980 Democratic nomination. It’s revealing that in the book, his animosity for Carter is evident, even as he offers kinder words for Presidents Lyndon Johnson (a bitter foe of his brother Bobby), Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton and Obama.
Carter trailed Kennedy badly in polls in 1979, but vowed to “whip” Kennedy, which he did, in part due to Kennedy’s stumbling start, including a landslide loss in the 1980 Iowa Caucuses.
He recovered to run well in the closing months, winning the South Dakota primary, among others, but fell short and never mounted another run for the presidency. He did ponder one in 1984, he said in the book, only to be dissuaded by his children.
Instead, Ted Kennedy settled in to become a powerful and effective senator, winning nine elections to the Senate. That was in marked contrast to his brothers. JFK served eight years in the same Senate seat before he won the presidency, and Bobby, who unlike his brothers represented New York, served just three and a half years before he was assassinated during his quest for the White House.
John F. Kennedy Jr. might have wound up in the Senate and even the White House, had he lived. He was merely 38 when the airplane he was piloting spun into the Atlantic Ocean on July 16, 1999, killing the president’s son as well as his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren. I well recall that grim weekend as the search found no evidence of his small plane, and the growing realization of yet another Kennedy tragedy.
Airplane disasters killed Joe Jr. during a highly dangerous World War II mission in 1944, a sister, Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy in 1948 and JFK Jr. in 1999. Ted Kennedy suffered a broken back in a June 19, 1964, plane crash that killed two people.
“There are more of us than there is trouble,” Bobby Kennedy said then. “The Kennedys intend to stay in public life. Good luck is something you make, and bad luck is something you endure.”
Bullets also left a deep wound on the family and country. President Kennedy and Bobby were shot and killed by assassins, deaths that shaped American politics and helped create the legend of the Kennedy Curse. Ted Kennedy admits he feared an assassin’s attack, and George McGovern told me that he once was seated outside sipping a drink with Ted when a bodyguard hurried them indoors, fearing Kennedy was too attractive a target.
There are still Kennedys in public life, most prominently RFK Jr. But his bizarre life and obvious lust for fame and power were exposed in the last year. By the time he suspended his campaign and backed Trump, his poll numbers had collapsed and he was out of money to keep running.
JFK’s daughter Caroline Kennedy, who never sought elective office, is the ambassador to Australia. She served as ambassador to Japan during Obama’s second term.
Patrick Joseph Kennedy II, Ted Kennedy’s son, represented Rhode Island in Congress for 16 years. He struggled with bipolar disorder and drug addiction, and after leaving the House of Representatives, has served as an advocate for improved mental health care.
I met him in Sioux Falls in 2012 when he attended McGovern Day. He held a press conference with former Sens. George McGovern and Tom Daschle, and was friendly, cooperative and rather shy.
Joseph P. Kennedy II represented Massachusetts in Congress for 12 years. Like so many members of his family, he had a tangled and tawdry personal life, which ended his plans to run for the Senate or governor.
I covered him in Rapid City in 2008 when he spoke about his Citizen Energy Corp., which pledged to distribute low-cost heating oil to low-income households. Kennedy had formed an unlikely alliance with Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez.
His son Joseph P. Kennedy III represented Massachusetts’ District 4 in the U.S. House of Representatives for four terms but lost a Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 2020. He is the first Kennedy to lose an election in the state.
Joe III is now the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland and will turn 44 in October. He may resurface as a candidate someday.
RFK Jr.’s reckless campaign was denounced by his siblings and other relatives. They said he was betraying what his father, uncle and the family had stood for in the name of personal ambition.
None of the current Kennedy have the high profile and national following of the earlier generation. Aside from RFK Jr.’s flameout, the media and the public don’t follow them closely. This generation does not generate the love, devotion, passion — and hatred, resentment and disdain — that Jack, Bobby and Ted did for decades.
RFK Jr. found that out this summer.
Fourth-generation South Dakotan Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states and contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The London Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets. Republish with permission.
