Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is beginning to build his political ground game in Iowa, even as he battles a Democratic Party that has kicked the kickoff caucus state out of its long-held position of primacy.
The Kennedy family scion and anti-vaccine warrior — or at least his campaign — is cordially inviting Iowans to his Iowa Campaign Kickoff and Precinct Training Event from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.
The event, held at Rewind Hotel by Hilton in West Des Moines, will feature former Ohio congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, who just happens to be RFK Jr.’s campaign manager. Kucinich be leading precinct training, according to an email sent Friday to Iowa households. Door hangers and campaign signs are available for the asking, according to the campaign invitation.
Kennedy’s door hangers are brimming with his positions on securing peace, his liberal environmental policy proposals, and his campaign to “Restore Our Rights.”
“Our administration will make it a top priority to protect and restore the fundamental civil liberties, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that hold the essence of what America can be,” the campaign literature asserts. “Freedom of speech is the capstone of all other rights and freedoms.”
Kennedy knows of what he speaks. His own party members tried to censor him last week during a congressional hearing on censorship.
“Once a government has the power to silence its opponents, no other right is safe,” his campaign material warns, pledging to “dismantle the censorship-industrial complex, in which Big Tech censors, deplatforms, shadowbans, and algorithmically suppresses any person or opinion the government asks them to.”
In other words, RFK Jr. is coming into the Hawkeye State headfirst.
Just what his full operational plan is or how much he plans to spend in Iowa is unclear. His campaign did not respond to email questions from The Iowa Star.
What is clear is that Kennedy is ready to challenge for Iowa, a deep red state incumbent President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s anointed, has all but abandoned after a miserable showing in the 2020 Iowa caucuses.
In the name of “diversity and inclusion,” the Democratic National Committee earlier this year voted to end Iowa’s reign as kickoff caucus state after a 50-plus-year run. The DNC said Iowa is too white, so it moved the state Democratic Party’s caucus down the nominating schedule. The Republican Party of Iowa intends to hold its caucuses in first order, with the first-in-the-nation nominating event scheduled for Jan. 15.
The Democratic Party of Iowa earlier this summer approved a kind of hybrid presidential preference card system, in which state Democrats will be able to mail in their presidential pick, and the vote count will be released when the DNC allows the state party to do so. The plan runs afoul of state law that requires in-person caucuses and for Iowa’s quirky presidential nominating process to go first.
Should the Iowa Democratic Party revolt and hold their caucuses on the same day as Republicans, they face being stripped of half their delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Iowa politics watchers have been wondering when — or if — Kennedy would get his ground game going in Iowa. He’s been absent since launching his long-shot campaign in April. It’s not clear when he plans to campaign in the Hawkeye State.
But RFK Jr. has said his path to victory against a massively funded, if not well-liked, incumbent is through the opening nominating states.
“We need a place where politicians have to come and be vetted in barber shops, diners, gas stations and nail salons and ask real questions. And people would have to interact with Americans to understand what’s happening on the ground in this country, and New Hampshire is the place where that happens. So, we need to bring the primaries back here,” Kennedy said during a speech in the Granite State, which also faces relegation in the Democrat’s nominating process.
Former Congressman Dave Nagle, a Waterloo Democrat who led the Iowa Democratic Party for several years, said he’d be glad to introduce any Democrat running to party members around the state.
“But in Robert’s case, I don’t know who the hell I’d ask him to talk to who wouldn’t be offended,” Nagle said, adding he doesn’t think RFK Jr. is viable — in Iowa, or anywhere.
“I’ve never said before that a candidate coming here doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell, but he’s the first,” said the former congressman from Iowa’s old 3rd Congressional District, who served alongside Kennedy’s brother Joe.
But RFK Jr. nephew of President John F. Kennedy and son of former U.S. Attorney General and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy, has been polling in the mid- to-upper teens in the polls. He’s running a distant second to Biden, but it’s definitely enough to give the president some political heartburn.
Perhaps it’s a sign of discomfort that Biden’s Department of Homeland Security reportedly won’t even sign off on the Kennedy campaign’s request for Secret Service Protection during the campaign, a service provided to all presidential candidates.
“Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me,” Kennedy said on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.
“Our campaign’s request included a 67-page report from the world’s leading protection firm, detailing unique and well established security and safety risks aside from commonplace death threats,” he added.
As The Hill reported Friday, the Secret Service is authorized to protect major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election. The Homeland Security secretary, in consultation with an advisory committee of House and Senate leadership, determines which candidates are in that “major” category.
Kennedy’s campaign likes to point to the latest Harvard-Harris poll, which shows the Democratic Party outsider at 16 percent. More so, it shows Kennedy’s favorability rating, at 47 percent, eight percentage points higher than Biden’s 39 percent.
“If the general election were held today, it’s likely that Mr. Kennedy would defeat any other candidate,” the campaign boldly states in a recent fund-raising appeal. Perhaps more bold than accurate, but definitely confident.
Nagle said Kennedy’s campaign entry into Iowa does send an important message to the so-called smartest people in the room at the Democratic National Committee.
“It shows the national party that, whether there are sanctions, we are not going to go away. That is some vindication,” the former state party chair said.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Robert Kennedy Jr.” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
If Joe continues to not offer RFK Jr. Secret Service Security, the campaign of the Presidential Hopeful should hire Cossacks to handle Security.
While I don’t think that President Trump should take part in the 1st (R) primary debate, especially against those polling at 0-5% nationally, I hope he will definitely take part when it is down to only 3 or 4 candidates in the double digits (maybe Trump, Ramaswamy, DeSantis). That said, the Democrats should hold their leadership’s feet to the fire and demand primary debates!
Meanwhile, while Joe hides in his basement, maybe he can allow his SS to protect the #2 (D) candidate.