Inside RFK Jr.'s Boston fundraiser
RETURN TO CAMELOT
By KELLY GARRITY and LISA KASHINSKY
04/30/2024
RETURN TO CAMELOT — Just over a year after he launched his quixotic quest for the White House, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was back at the glitzy Boston hotel where it all began to collect some cash to keep his now-independent campaign going.
“Bobby” — as his supporters affectionately call him — settled into a chair across the Park Plaza stage from two of his most famous boosters, Donnie Wahlberg and Jenny McCarthy, for a wide-ranging “fireside chat.” Behind him, a black-and-white mural showed pictures of Kennedy at all stages of life, including one of him as a young boy sitting on his father’s shoulders — a not-so-subtle reminder of the political dynasty he was born into that’s largely forsaken him in his longshot bid for the White House.
The ballroom was packed with die-hard fans who clapped and called out as Kennedy railed against pharmaceutical companies and the alleged censorship of certain doctors during the pandemic. There were also a lot of Wahlbergs — not quite “half the audience,” as Kennedy quipped, but enough to fill a sizable section of chairs toward the front of the room. Missing: their most famous brother. Also missing: any prominent Massachusetts politician.
The scion of one of the state’s other uber-famous families returned to Massachusetts on Monday in a far different position than when he launched what was then a Democratic primary challenge to President Joe Biden 12 months ago.
Kennedy is now a thorn in the side of both major parties’ presumptive nominees as an independent candidate who polls show could siphon votes from the Republican and Democratic standard-bearers come November.
But as both Donald Trump and the Democratic National Committee lash out at him, Kennedy played it cool on Monday. He called Trump “well-intentioned” but ribbed him for padding his administration with the very “swamp creatures” that he had pledged to drain from Washington.
Wahlberg even posited that more attention — negative though it may be — could be good for Kennedy as he attempts to insert himself into the mainstream political conversation. Several of Kennedy’s supporters said the same, even though surveys show his ability to trade in on his family’s last name and his anti-vaccine and anti-government-corruption advocacy appears to be limited.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is fundraising in Massachusetts — and handing out hats. | Kelly Garrity/POLITICO
Outside the ballroom, Kennedy’s campaign handed out green-and-white baseball caps emblazoned with the words “KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT” and, in another nod to his heritage, a tiny golden shamrock.
Staffers also hustled to collect signatures from the registered Massachusetts voters in the crowd to help secure his spot on the November ballot.
They were few and far between, according to one volunteer who described Bay State voters as “in the minority” on Monday compared to the out-of-towners who had traveled from Maine, New Jersey and even Florida to attend the event. That’s consistent with a recent MassINC/CommonWealth Beacon/GBH News poll that found Kennedy drawing less than 10 percent of support from Massachusetts voters.
But they weren’t nonexistent. Kennedy’s support among the Massachusetts set spanned from a lifelong Democrat who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 to a Rockport couple who described themselves as conservative and said they voted for Trump, to a Duxbury woman who said she was ineligible to vote in the last presidential election but is “100 percent” voting for Kennedy in November.
GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Today’s the deadline for district and county candidates to turn in their nomination papers to local election offices. Not running again? Let us know: kgarrity@politico.com and lkashinsky@politico.com
TODAY — Gov. Maura Healey addresses the New England Council at 8:30 a.m. at the Boston Harbor Hotel and attends the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Partnership’s “Following In Her Footsteps” awards at 6 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theatre; former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy and Colette Phillips are honorees. Rep. Seth Moulton is on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” at 11 a.m. |
