RFK Jr.’s desperate, absurd path onto the California presidential ballot

OPINION – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has found his way on to the California Presidential ballot, but typical of his image, it was the most desperate, head-scratching, and absurd launch imaginable.

To begin, let’s back up to the beginning of the year when RFK Jr. announced he was going to be get on the ballot in a number of states, including California, by way of qualifying a new political party. This ‘We the People’ Party (not to be confused with the 1992 Jerry Brown presidential effort of the same name) would qualify for the general election in California and nominate him as their presidential candidate if it could gain 75,000 registrants prior to July 5^th.

To say this effort was fledgling would be a compliment.

In almost four months of organizing the effort had registered fewer than 10,000 voters, and with around 10 weeks to go, there didn’t appear to be a path for the party to get within striking distance of its goal.

And then came the American Independent Party – a right wing outfit that is the anthesis of the Kennedy legacy.

The AIP was created by the infamous “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, as a means of placing him on the California Presidential Ballot in 1968.

Now, just over a dozen presidential cycles later, it is being used to get a Kennedy on the ballot.

The historical connection is shocking. Governor Wallace’s performative racism was typified by his “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” in 1963 where he defiantly opposed integration efforts at the University of Alabama during the Kennedy administration. It was actually then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the father of RFK Jr., who found himself in the heart of that conflict, engaging in a tense negotiation with Wallace in an effort to avert a constitutional crisis. Years later, it was Wallace who used his state troopers to block civil rights protesters from marching to Montgomery, leading to the infamous “Bloody Sunday” in Selma.

Imagine going back in time and telling RFK that in 60 years his own son would be proudly announcing his nomination for the presidency by Wallace’s political party!

The AIP was born segregationist, and has in the intervening years continued to be a radically conservative party – advocating for deportations, being fiercely anti-abortion and opposing LGBTQ rights, including gay marriage.

While it holds these ultraconservative views, it has an astonishing 830,000 registrants, almost entirely made up of voters who think they are registering independent. This was brilliantly reported by the Los Angeles Times in 2016, using bipartisan polling and even citing a number of celebrities, politicians and even LA Times reporters who had erroneously registered with the AIP.

The AIP actually had a primary on the March ballot, and its winner was James Bradley, but at their convention they disregarded that popular vote winner and nominated RFK Jr. instead.  And this isn’t without precedent. In 2016 the AIP nominated Alan Spears in the primary, but then at their convention nominated Donald Trump.  (Yes, in 2016 all ballots sent to California Voters showed Trump as the nominee of two parties – the Republican Party and the AIP.)

The announcement of RFK Jr’s nomination by the AIP made brief mention about how the party had some historic roots, and that Wallace was a “bigoted segregation supporter” but that the party had recently had a “rebirth” with new leadership.

This is all true, but with a twist.

In the most recent meeting of the AIP they elected a new Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. What wasn’t revealed was that as recently as the 2022 General Election each of these folks were all registered Republicans. The new Chair, Victor Maranari has been a regular Republican donor. This mirrors other findings that behind the RFK support are Republicans hoping he will play a spoiler role in the election.

The RFK campaign appears so desperate that they are willing to scheme with a group of Republicans to put window dressing on a racist political party that was born out of spite for the Kennedy family, all to get on the ballot in California because their original attempt to start a new party was failing.

I can’t think of a more desperate, tragic and inept political move he could make.

Paul Mitchell is a regular contributor to Capitol Weekly, the creator of the CA120 column, vice president of Political Data and owner of Redistricting Partners, a political strategy firm.