What’s the future for Joseph Kennedy III?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is scheduled to launch a campaign this week in Boston for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. But never mind that. Did you see Joe Kennedy III standing right next to President Biden as he stepped off Air Force One at Belfast International Airport last week?
Most people probably paid scant attention to the smiling visage of the former congressman and failed US Senate candidate who now serves as Biden’s special envoy to Northern Ireland. But those Kennedy watchers still among us took notice. While they may be a shrinking population, they have not given up the hope that Camelot is not dead — and that if he wants to, Joe Kennedy III is still the Kennedy who can breathe new life into what now feels like ancient political history. After all, there he was “in Ireland with the president,” said Philip W. Johnston, a former chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and longtime backer of candidates with the name Kennedy. “He [Joe Kennedy III] flew over there with him [Biden]. He spent significant time with him. He’s in a pretty good place within the Democratic Party. Bobby doesn’t have that.”
“Bobby” is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: the namesake of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while campaigning for president in 1968, and the family outcast because of political views that include opposition to vaccines and support from Steve Bannon, a former Donald Trump strategist. By taking on Biden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also challenging a president who described his father as a personal hero and appointed several Kennedy family members to posts in his administration.
In a weird Massachusetts way, the talk about a presidential run by a Kennedy who is now considered the antithesis of the family brand also has people talking about Joe Kennedy III, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy. He was considered the heir to Camelot until he lost a primary race to Senator Edward J. Markey in 2020. Given that loss, and his subsequent appointment to a diplomatic post considered second tier, he “could have disappeared into the ether,” said veteran political consultant Michael Goldman. But “his uncle running has elevated him in a way no one could have imagined.”
From ether to elevation because somebody else named Kennedy is running for office — only in Massachusetts, you say? And you could be right. But from my perspective, Joe Kennedy III doesn’t warrant attention because of his uncle’s ill-conceived presidential run, nor does he deserve banishment for his own ill-conceived race. He failed, but he tried. Isn’t that what politics is all about? The issue is whether lessons were learned, whether he still has a desire to run for public office, and whether there’s an opening to which he brings something valuable.
Now is not the time for pinning political hopes on the “brief, shining moment” that King Arthur famously ponders in “Camelot” — and which, to a certain generation, will always be linked to the mythology crafted around the presidency of John F. Kennedy after his assassination. For one thing, the Aaron Sorkin-inspired revival of that play opened last week at the Lincoln Center Theater to chilly reviews. As one critic put it, it’s a production that “projects the overarching sense of a beloved old property being propped up beyond its strength.” Ouch.
The same weakness haunted Kennedy’s run against Markey. His campaign was rooted in the mistaken notion that Markey, then 74, would take one look at the fresh-faced opponent with the famous name and drop out. Instead, Markey donned his Nikes, got an endorsement from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and won the youth vote. Meanwhile, Joe Kennedy III was endorsed by Ethel Kennedy — “He reminds me of Bobby and Jack and Teddy,” his grandmother said.
With that and other genuflections to the family legacy, Joe Kennedy III, the Kennedy who did not make his name a big deal during his four terms in Congress, became a prisoner of it. As Markey deftly wrapped him up in history, he was not nimble enough to pivot. When he lost convincingly to Markey, his political eulogy was written: He was the first Kennedy to lose a race in Massachusetts, ending what had looked like a promising political career. Yet, today, he’s just 42. As Joe Baerlein, another veteran political consultant, put it, “Unlike almost anyone else who has lost a race, the clock is not his enemy.”
Is Joe Kennedy III still interested in elective politics? I haven’t asked him, so I don’t know. But if he is, neither Camelot nor proximity to Biden are platforms for success. As his famous predecessors knew, a winning campaign is always about the future. Still, a photo with a president can remind people that life doesn’t end with a loss on Election Day.