Robert Kennedy Jr, scion of the Massachusetts-based Kennedy political clan, is expected to announce tomorrow that he would not take part in any Democratic Party primary election, but would instead run as an independent candidate in next year’s US presidential election. This would pit him against fellow Democrat US President Joe Biden, who intends to run for re-election. The US media are not making a fuss about Kennedy’s plan to run, nor is anyone in the Democratic Party calling for “unity” or “consolidation,” or saying that anyone with low opinion poll ratings should quit the race. Indeed, Kennedy has the right to run if he wants to.
Voting and standing in elections are both statutory rights in any democracy. With the rules of the game set out beforehand, the emphasis is on open and fair competition, not allowing politicians to act as “kingmakers” by forcing political parties with different philosophies to cobble together a pair of electoral candidates. While such a “teamwork” strategy might be euphemistically called “uniting the opposition,” its real aim is to divide the spoils after winning the election, all in the name of “rotation of parties in government.”
