Biden Refuses to give RFK Jr. Secret Service Protection?

VIA SBINSIDER ANALYSIS | 3-09-2024

The Kennedy family has suffered great tragedies and achieved great heights as the “royal” family of Democratic politics. President Kennedy met his fate in Dallas, Texas November 23rd 1963. His assassination has been debated everyday since as to whether it was a conspiracy or a lone gunman, Oswald.  Then, in June of 1968, his brother Robert was assassinated in Los Angeles after winning the Democratic primary, by Sirhan Sirhan a Palestinian terrorist who sits in prison today.

RFK Jr. is running for President. He is not running as a Democrat but as an Independent and has of late, flirted with becoming the candidate of the Libertarian Party, in order to access the Presidential ballot in every state. (States are controlled by the Democrat and Republican parties and set barriers very high for any party trying to get into the game.)  At this point he has been approaching 20% in polling data across the US.

RFK Jr. has formally asked President Biden several times for Secret Service protection and has been rebuked. This refusal is puzzling given the Kennedy name and his polling levels of late.

Biden has gone to extraordinary measures to keep his job. For the first time ever, he persuaded the Democratic party to not recognize the Iowa caucuses as a legitimate gathering of Democrat voters. Biden has always performed poorly in Iowa and decided to ignore its voters. Then, he skipped the New Hampshire primary. He likely remembered the disaster that LBJ faced in 1968 where he won barely, over Senator Eugene McCarthy-the anti Vietnam war candidate. (The book to read is “The Year that Broke Politics.)   

LBJ still won New Hampshire, badly wounded.  Very quickly after, RFK Sr. (Bobby)  jumped into the race. Then on March 30, LBJ spoke to the country and announced his withdrawal from the race.

3rd Party Presidential Disruptors

George Wallace and Ross Perot are recent independent candidates who took significant numbers of voters away from the both Democrat and Republican candidates. Wallace hurt Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Ross Perot likely cost George H. W. Bush the 1992 race. RFK is not polling as well as either at the same point in the race. But it is hard to predict which candidate he would hurt the most if he has access to enough state ballots. A big IF.

Biden vs. Trump Redux

The candidates are set for the rematch. For Trump, this looks very much like the ancient Gilgamesh tale of a hero’s rise, fall and maybe a triumphant return. Biden is the last of his generation of Democrat candidates as his party has leadership that is more diverse and much younger. His State of the Union speech reassured his base of his viability at age 81, which he was fighting. Can Biden sustain the level of energy he projected? We shall see.

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