The Democratic Party has succumbed to the “siren of control,” according to a letter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. penned to the Democratic National Committee ahead of its controversial meeting that was expected to decide delegate procedures for the 2024 primary elections.
The Kennedy family scion running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination spares no feelings in calling out the party of his famous father and uncle for losing its way.
“Unfortunately, in recent years our party leaders have succumbed to the siren of control,” RFK Jr. wrote in the letter Wednesday to Democratic National Committee Chairperson Jaime Harrison. “They have compromised the defining democratic principle of one person, one vote through repeated interference in the primary elections. They have hijacked the party machinery and, in recent years, directed the power of censorship onto their political opponents, raising political victory onto the altar in place of honest democracy.”
At its meeting in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee unanimously voted to give New Hampshire Democrats a one-month extension to deliver their delegate selection plan with a national party-approved updated primary date.
Earlier this year, the DNC voted to bump Iowa from its coveted first-in-the-nation caucus position. It did the same to New Hampshire, moving it from the front-of-the-line primary position. The idea is to lead with states like South Carolina and Michigan that aren’t so white, and that better represent the “diversity” of the Democratic Party.
Iowa and New Hampshire, coincidentally, rejected Joe Biden as the Democratic Party presidential nominee in 2020. The president finished in fourth place in the Hawkeye State and in fifth place in New Hampshire. South Carolina, thanks to his old party establishment friends there, turned Biden’s political fortunes around.
Iowa Democrats have tried to bend to the wishes of the DNC and its altered schedule, coming up with a plan to caucus on January 15, the same night as Republicans, but delaying the release of a mail-in candidate preference vote until the date established by the national party. State law demands Iowa hold its caucuses first, as it has done for 50 years, and a new law prohibits mail-in votes for the in-person caucus.
The DNC has threatened to punish states that jump the line, taking away delegates in the nominating contest.
New Hampshire Democrats aren’t budgeting, risking the loss of delegates and Biden’s name on the state party’s primary ballot.
RFK Jr., a vocal critic of COVID, vaccines, and Biden in general, is running 55 percentage points behind the unpopular incumbent, according the latest RealClearPolitics average of 2024 Democratic Presidential Nomination polls. But the challenger, who, unlike Biden, has been campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire where, given Biden’s refusal to treat the nominating process as a contest and not an anointment, said he believes he stands a fighting chance.
That is, if he’s allowed to compete.
“In schools across this country, we teach our children that they have an inalienable right to self-determination, that no matter the town or creed or condition into which they were born, they each have an equal right to vote for the life and society of their choosing. And that someday, they too will have the chance to put forth their own ideas and be elected or passed over, based on the equal votes of diverse peers,” Kennedy Jr. wrote.
“Never, in all the civics lessons in all the schools in America, did the teacher add, ‘except for in states that the President lost in the previous election.’ Never, in all the glorious retellings of our fight for universal voting rights, has any teacher added, ‘and the decision of the people should be overturned if it doesn’t comply with the preferences of the ruling elites.’”
“Yet this is exactly the new page in history that the DNC’s pending rules propose, casting out New Hampshire’s votes, limiting ballot access in Iowa, and deploying party operatives to water down the popular vote and ensure a controlled victory,” he added.
In short, the same party of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and his father and former presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy, the party that delivered the Voting Rights Act, are hypocrites.
Democratic leaders are calling Kennedy Jr.’s criticisms of a rigged party primary process “erroneous,” according to a story published Wednesday in the Washington Post. They insist several of his allegations are “wrong or unfounded.”
But Section 4 of the Democratic Party’s charter and bylaws demands the party:
Establish standards and rules of procedure to afford all members of the Democratic Party full, timely and equal opportunities to participate in decisions concerning the selection of candidates, the formulation of policy, and the conduct of other Party affairs, without prejudice on the basis of sex, race, age (if of voting age), color, creed, national origin, religion, economic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnic identity or disability, and further, to promote fair campaign practices and the fair adjudication of disputes…”
Kennedy Jr. campaign manager Dennis Kucinich told Fox News the DNC “closely consulting” with the Biden campaign puts the party’s actions at odds with its charter.
Equally disheartening, the candidate, says, is the DNC’s refusal to hold debates.
“Voters deserve — and democracy requires — a competitive process by which to determine nominees,” RFK Jr. wrote in the letter. “It should be the parties’ voters who choose a candidate, not party insiders who anoint one.”
Allegations of DNC nomination rigging are nothing new, because the DNC has rigged its nominating process before.
In 2017, a federal judge conceded the committee and then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz probably did violate the party charter by rigging the Democratic presidential primaries for Hillary Clinton against U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Even former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) acknowledged after internal documents were leaked that he knew — “everybody knew — that this was not a fair deal.”
But Federal Judge William Zloch dismissed the lawsuit after several months of litigation during which DNC attorneys argued that the DNC would be well within their rights to select their own candidate, the Observer reported. “In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claims at this stage, the Court assumes their allegations are true—that the DNC and Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her Democratic opponent,” the court order dismissing the lawsuit stated.
So much for the Democratic Party “family,” as Kennedy Jr. described the people and players in his letter. Dysfunctional family, perhaps.
“I write to you now in hope that you hold the engine of democracy as sacred as I do,” he concluded. “I pray that, at a time of public discontent, you cede more power to the public, not less, and thereby do right by yourselves, by the American people, and by the ideal of self determination that inaugurated our great nation.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On Stage” by RFK Jr.
