On Saturday, the Democratic National Committee is all but certain to strip New Hampshire of its First in the Nation presidential primary status, a plan proposed by President Joe Biden and backed overwhelmingly by the identity-politics majority in the party. At this point, the best Chairman Ray Buckley can hope for is that the arctic blast plunging in from Canada will freeze committee members out of the ballroom of the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown.
But wait — on Wednesday, a new champion for Chairman Buckley and his party appeared on the horizon like a knight riding in from Camelot.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
In an open letter to the DNC posted on his Substack page, RFK, Jr. urged the committee “not to interfere in New Hampshire’s plan to hold the nation’s first primary.”
“My Uncle Jack spoke to voters in Dover on the eve of the 1960 New Hampshire primary. He said that ‘we Democrats realize that the days when presidential candidates can be nominated in smoke-filled rooms, by political leaders and party bosses, have forever passed from the scene.’ He said ‘that no man has won a national election who was unwilling to test his candidacy with the people.’
I echo those thoughts,” Kennedy wrote.
These are not the only thoughts the son of Robert Kennedy echoes, alas. He is best known for amplifying the ideas of the anti-vaccine fringe, repeating the sort of conspiracy theory lunacy usually found on Rep. Ken Weyler’s laptop.
Last year, Kennedy had to apologize for comparing vaccine policy to Nazi Germany. “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” Kennedy said at an anti-vax rally.
He has been kicked off of Instagram for spreading false claims about vaccines and has embraced a conspiracy theory about his father’s death. He now says Sirhan Sirhan didn’t assassinate his dad.
RFK, Jr. has even claimed the measles vaccine, given to billions of children over the decades, is dangerous.
“They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone,” Kennedy said in 2015. “This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.”
And this is the last, best hope of the New Hampshire Democratic Party?
As long as U.S. Senators Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen refuse to take any action whatsoever to save the FITN primary, then yes.
Or put another way, RFK, Jr.’s letter to the DNC may be an embarrassing joke, but it will have just as much impact as the letters from the Democratic members of the state’s federal delegation or the “good friends” of Joe Biden who have begged him to change his mind.
As recently as Tuesday, Rep. Chris Pappas confirmed on Drew Cline’s radio show that the delegation has no intention of using its political pull in a tightly-divided Congress to save the primary.
Meanwhile, in just the past month, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) have both threatened to hold up Biden administration appointments to pressure the White House to meet their demands. It is hardly an unusual strategy.
Thanks to the 51-49 U.S. Senate, Hassan and Shaheen could deny Democrats a majority until the Granite State is given its rightful place at the front of the presidential primary line. They haven’t, and they won’t.
All New Hampshire Democrats can do now is hope their anti-vax Kennedy kook can somehow bring back that Camelot magic.
In other words, they’re screwed.