RFK Jr. going independent

Interesting, but not totally surprising, and also not totally smart to make this move. OR is it smart after all? See my full analysis as it plays out through the piece.

Given that he's already talked to Libertarian Party chair Angela McArdle, his growing frustration with trying to top President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party primary process has become quite public.

So, aborting that, I get.

Update, Oct. 5: The ongoing Libertarian Party implosion and backbiting among national board members, in part reflecting Miss Caucus vs non-Mises, is another good reason for Bob Jr. to avoid that shitshow.

The "not totally smart" is running as an independent. John Anderson is the last serious candidate to try that route. Ross is Boss Perot, even though he had no congressional candidates on his coattails, nonetheless got the Reform Party created as a platform and vehicle.

First, I don't think he gets the ballot access difficulties that face an independent, and that have only grown, perhaps exponentially, in the more than 40 years since Anderson did it.

Now, it's true that he's got Kennedy money (although that may not be quite as much as some of us think) to throw at paid petition signature gatherers in states that allow that. But, there's also getting official presidential electors in our American system and more. 

And, unless he wanted to try to bigfoot Cornel West, the Libertarians are his best angle.

I also doubt that No Labels wants to nominate him, even if it opts to nominate somebody. No Labels also has the baggage from its own POV that, at least in states covered by law by the Ninth Circuit, it CANNOT be only a presidential party, barring a new lawsuit.

Next?

The duopoly-based political horse race angle.

And, going by polls this summer, RFK Jr. going independent could hurt Republicans more than Democrats.

Reuters' story on the announcement, without detailed polling numbers, agrees. So does a National Review piece from July, linked by Mediaite.

And, per a new Mediate story, such luminary wingnuts as Charlie Kirk and Prilosec/POS/Posobiec agree that this hurts Trump more. Taint just them saying that, either; a RFK Jr staffer also says so, per the "this will fuck Trump" header. Indeed, without being so graphic, the man said his own self last week. Prilosec thinks it's a BlueAnon conspiracy, in fact.

That said, those numbers will change, and they'll change more if he abandons the Independent line and joins a third party.  

That said, with his announcement now official, GOP attacks confirm they're worried.

Now, some final analysis of this.

The flip side of all of this? 

First, like West went from MPP first to the Greens second (actually, he's technically running both as a fusion candidate), RFK Jr's move to an independent run doesn't preclude eventually moving to the Libertarians.

Second, the flip side to that is? Beyond the NYT reporting, the meeting with McArdle must just not have gone that well, if we're going to read between some lines.

Third is, on the "horse race" angle, running under the LP banner would probably hurt Republicans even more. 

Fourth, though, per that NR piece, Kennedy's fit as a Libertarian would be tough indeed. And, there's no guarantee he'd win the primary. Ditto on if he decided to bigfoot West.

Speaking of third parties? Anderson helped form the Justice Party not too many years before his death.

==

Now, media analysis.

Why Friday evening / late afternoon news dump time? (Contra any assumptions this was an accident, while this technically may be a "leak," not an "announcement," it seems to me to clearly have been a "planned leak," and on the semantics of that versus "announcement"? Per Spock in STTOS: "A difference that makes no difference IS no difference.")

So, why Friday dead zone time? Especially with shutdown news soaking up some of the media political oxygen? Could that be that RFK didn't want too big a trumpet blast?

As for "where"? Mediaite was certainly a chosen target. You don't have to worry about leaking to the NYT and pissing off the WaPost, or leaking to NR and pissing off TNR, etc.

Mediate is a media analysis site, but one that focuses on analysis of political news coverage. Perfect target.

And, on the timing, once more? The big announcement is Oct. 9, so, the campaign needed some sort of leak before then. And, Friday dead zone time? RFK's campaign, or the man himself, could have figured that all the shutdown coverage was to their advantage. News junkies wanted something else in national news, and many of RFK's vote targets are probably open to blaming both duopoly sides on the shutdown.

So, while it looks like a stereotypical Friday afternoon news dump, there may be logic to it. And, while a first-time candidate for elected office, RFK, through Waterkeepers and other groups, is not a stranger to dealing with the media in general.

==

Now, a second round of political analysis.

First, between money, name and enthusiasm, RFK Jr. can probably get on the ballot in most states with no problem. And, per his time running Waterkeepers and other things, he's got some experience with petition drives for ballot access, I would think.

A related note? Here in Tex-ass, I believe the rule on signing for an independent candidate to get on the ballot is the same as for a third party to get party-line ballot access. It's a disgusting rule, and just another way in which Democrats join with Republicans in suppressing third-party and independent candidate vote rights. In other words, if you voted in either the R or D primary in 2002, you can't sign, and that leaves me out. (Even though I don't plan on voting for him, I absolutely would sign if I could.)

In turn, a note related to that? RFK may not have problems recruiting enthusiastic people as signature gatherers, and paying them where he can. But, per the polling information above, and uncertainty, BOTH duopoly parties will do their best to find ANY problems with his petitions in all 50 states. 

(Update: On IPR, I posted a Ballotpedia link, about paid signature gatherers for initiatives, and extrapolated from that to political candidates; all 50 allow paid petition circulators for president, but vary on how they're paid.)

Second, the fit with Libertarians just doesn't seem like it would be that much better than with Republicans. Even if RFK has softened on gun control (he has, and yet another reason to dislike him), he's still pretty staunch on environmental issues, and their need to be enforced by regulation. Unless he dumps that, too, that, and other issues where he still supports the regulatory state, is too touch a match.

Third, running as a Libertarian, or a Green, just means you're a candidate. Nomination not guaranteed. It's true, he could try to use an existing Libertarian candidate as a cutout, like the "libertarian" Greens of 2020 were trying to use Dario Hunter as a cutout for Jesse the Body Ventura. (They hate it when he's called that.)

Fourth, nonetheless, some non-Mises Libertarians may well vote for RFK Jr. I see this as a net negative for them, if they don't get him on the ballot, as for a Trump-led GOP.

Oh, as for the number of signatures? Here in Tex-ass, it's 113,000 and change. I think it was a lot lower for Mimi Soltyski in 2016; the high presidential turnout in 2020 plus increased population has jacked the number. It was 90K in 2020.

==

And, yet more why Bob Jr. won't go Libertarian?

It's not the environmentalism, it's the pro-life-ism. He's hardcore "good conservative cafeteria Catholic" on this issue, so much so that he touted on Twitter a place in Georgia, Auntie Angie's, that, reading between the lines, believes the "abortion is Black genocide" bullshit.

Note: This isn't out of the blue for Bob Jr. Given that he's grifted on the actual wrongs of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment to target American Samoa, Somali immigrants in Minneapolis and other people of color with his antivaxxerism, Bob Jr. may actually be a self-gaslighter on the "abortion is Black genocide" issue. As a 2-star overall book I just read notes, in 2021, Bob Jr.'s Children's  Health Defense released the film "Medical Racism: The New Apartheid." Add in that Bob Jr. has buddied up with Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, and there you are. (How he squares this with blank checks for Israel, I don't know.

Ron Paul was the last Libertarian candidate, back in 1988, to be openly personally pro-life, IIRC.

That said, while the Libertarian platform talks about people owning their own bodies, it does NOT explicitly tie that to "reproductive choice" or "abortion." Neither is mentioned in the platform.  And, per this "Libertarians on abortion" piece, that platform schwaffling (despite its PR bullshit) is deliberate. Per that link, why not explicitly say in the platform what the piece says? "Libertarians recognize that abortion is a controversial issue, therefore bodily self-ownership should not be taken as an endorsement of abortion." The reality is that Libertarians, IMO, think that most lowercase libertarians believe the party is pro-choice and won't disabuse them. It's bullshit.

That's why this piece, discussing the 2018 platform, and that the government should "stay out" of this issue, is also laughable. Since abortion became medically safe, not doing anything is "taking a side."