Kennedys select Biden over blood
At White House, scoff at RFK Jr.’s campaign
Several members of the Kennedy family spent St. Patrick’s Day at the White House with President Joe Biden while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continued his campaign to become the nation’s 47th commander-in-chief.
“From one proud Irish family to another — it was good to have you all back at the White House,” reads a photo caption posted to Biden’s social media accounts.
That picture shows dozens of guests dressed mostly in green visiting 1600 Pennsylvania, where John F. Kennedy served as the country’s 35th president. More than 30 of the people photographed were Kennedys, according to the Hill.
Kerry Kennedy, whose brother is running against Biden in November, posted a note of support for the incumbent.
“It’s not enough to wish the world were better, you must make the world better,” she wrote online. “President Biden, you make the world better. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.”
While the Kennedy family is synonymous with Democratic party politics, RFK Jr. is campaigning as an independent candidate. He complained Friday that the Democrats are trying to undermine him as a “spoiler candidate” who would help Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump split the Democratic vote. But many members of the RFK Jr.’s own family have challenged the 70-year-old scion’s candidacy.
“I’ve listened to him,” John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg said in July. “I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president.”
Schlossberg called RFK Jr.’s candidacy “an embarrassment.”
The candidate’s siblings posted an open letter in October denouncing their brother‘s political ambitions.
“The decision of our brother Bobby to run as a third party candidate against Joe Biden is dangerous to our country,” Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Joseph P. Kennedy II wrote on Twitter. “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.”
When RFK Jr. announced his candidacy in April, he acknowledged that some members of his family weren’t in attendance and joked about familial disagreements.