Lately, you've probably been asking yourself: What does it mean that Nicole Shanahan was selected as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s running mate?
Well, maybe not.
I know you have a busy and fulfilling life, but this Shanahan thing is a bit serious. Let's discuss.
As we all know, RFK Jr. is running for president as an independent, an endeavor that will further amplify his anti-vaccination views and perhaps give meaning to his life.
Shanahan is a lawyer who has never been elected, but she is known to be extremely wealthy. She became a billionaire thanks to her five-year marriage to Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google. Many of us first heard of her when she spent $4 million on a Super Bowl ad that superimposed Kennedy's face onto footage promoting his assassinated uncle. This has further propelled the Kennedy brothers into the pockets of President Biden, who recently hosted a St. Patrick's Day party at the White House that was attended by many of Kennedy's guests.
“Almost all of Joe and Rose Kennedy's grandchildren support Joe Biden,” RFK Jr.'s sister, Kelly, said in a speech a few weeks after the rally.
In most presidential elections, a third-party candidate like Kennedy makes no difference. Once every four years, some guy you've never heard of ends up on a state's presidential ballot. It never works out. The last time we had a president who wasn't a Democrat or Republican was Millard Fillmore, the Whig vice presidential candidate who became president in 1850 when Zachary Taylor died from eating too many cherries and drinking too much milk at a Fourth of July celebration.
Be sure to appreciate the special moment that once every four years you find a way to discuss that killer cherry story.
Either way, don't worry, we'll see a second Kennedy take office next year — either Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
I know, I know. Stop whining. That's the big question here. How many of you are going to vote for RFK Jr. as a protest against real choice?
This is a third-party swipe. It doesn't win a candidate, but it can ruin one of the real candidates. The most famous, of course, is Ralph Nader's 2000 campaign, which helped George W. Bush become president instead of Al Gore. In 2016, Hillary Clinton might have won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and even faced off against Trump if Green Party candidate Jill Stein hadn't run, which kept some of those who wanted to vote for women off the ballot.
Kennedy's supporters say he's already qualified enough to qualify for the ballot in several states, including the crucial state of Michigan. Kennedy could wedge himself into next month's presidential debate. Sooner or later, there will be a slew of fitness articles juxtaposing photos of Trump on the golf course, Biden on the beach and a buff Kennedy Jr. doing push-ups. If voters want a president who can host foreign dignitaries in the White House shirtless, Kennedy is definitely your candidate.
Shanahan is not what you'd expect from a vice presidential candidate. She was married to a tech investor who filed for an annulment 27 days later. She denies reports that her marriage to Brin fell apart after an affair with Elon Musk. Someone will include all of this in a debate question.
The issue here is that Shanahan could use his fortune to back a major presidential campaign for Kennedy, who is already a mega-celebrity, has a strong environmental record and a son who dated Taylor Swift.
On the other hand, of course, he has never held public office, run a large organization, and has done little to no to demonstrate political skill. His fans put his name forward as a candidate at the Libertarian Convention on Sunday, where he received about 2 percent of the vote. Some of his positions, particularly on abortion rights, are equivocal at best.
Recent national polls have Kennedy with about 16 percent of voters, but there's every reason to believe that most of that was from people who just wanted to protest the Biden-Trump choice. This, folks, is a really bad idea. Voting for an independent for president doesn't make you a person of principle. It makes you a citizen who cares more about looking cool and being superior to everything else than participating in a real democratic process.
The two-party system serves to unite the country and will be especially important this year: Voters need to trust that the winner really did win, which is hard enough when one of the candidates won't accept an election as legitimate unless he or she wins.
