Kennedys rally to stop RFK Jr.

Sixteen years ago, the most illustrious members of the Kennedy clan gathered on a stage at American University and bestowed their benediction on a first-term senator from Illinois who was running for the Democratic presidential nomination as an underdog against the establishment favorite.

“I feel change in the air. What about you?” Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., thundered before an electrified crowd of thousands. Alongside the family patriarch was his son Patrick (then a Democratic congressman from Rhode Island) and his niece Caroline, who the day before had declared in a New York Times op-ed then-Sen. Barack Obama would be “a president like my father.”

That January 2008 event consciously invoked the passing of the torch to a new generation, the metaphor made indelible in former President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address. And it gave a badly needed boost to Obama’s prospects against the Democratic front-runner, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., herself part of a political dynasty in the making. Although Clinton had the backing of several lesser-known members of the extended Kennedy family, its star power was solidly behind Obama.

That day, as the only reporter allowed backstage, I had a close vantage for it all. It was hard not to think back on that moment Thursday as Kennedys gathered on a stage in Philadelphia to formally announce their support for President Joe Biden in an attempt to protect their family’s legacy from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the crackpot conspiracy theorist running an independent presidential campaign.

Take a moment to think about how much has changed for the family since 2008. What no one could know then was this would be one of the final high points for the Kennedys’ influence in modern electoral politics.

With fewer and fewer Americans having any memory of the Camelot years, it should surprise no one the Kennedy magic is not what it once was. But this election cycle brought a new and dark coda to the family.

RFK Jr. has exploited the dimming Kennedy aura, frequently citing his slain father and uncle. His last name has taken him into the low double digits in the polls — not enough to win any electoral votes, much less win the election, but potentially enough to tip the balance to former President Donald Trump against Biden in some of the states that will matter most in November.

Onstage with Biden on Thursday were six of RFK’s siblings. They never mentioned their brother directly at the Philadelphia gathering, but the target of the rebuke was clear. In an election fueled by fear and resentment, there is no torch to be passed — except for the one that the Kennedys fear would be used to set fire to what’s left of the family’s name.