Predator (1987)

Film: Predator (1987)

Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elpidia Carrilo, Carl Weathers, Richard Chaves, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura

Director: John McTiernan

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Arnold Schwarzenegger: click here to learn more about Mr. Schwarzenegger (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, like most movie stars, has had his love life pretty well-chronicled, but for most of his time as a movie star, it was largely linked to one woman.  He had dated English teacher Barbara Outland (who would eventually write a rather scathing memoir about their time together when he was running for reelection as governor in 2006) before he started acting regularly, but other than a brief fling with Eleanor Mondale in the late 1970's (when her father was vice president), his primary romantic partner was Maria Shriver, the daughter of Sargent & Eunice Shriver, and the niece of President Kennedy (meaning that Schwarzenegger, a future Republican Governor, did in fact date the scions of two major Democratic families).  Shriver & Schwarzenegger's romance was unconventional, but seemingly happy for much of its run.  They had four children, and their political views (while commonly-known) were largely kept quiet given that Shriver was a journalist at NBC at the time.  There was the fun juxtaposition of Arnold campaigning for George HW Bush in 1988 while Maria's senator uncle Ted was stumping for Michael Dukakis, but by-and-large they presented as a solid couple even though Schwarzenegger was repeatedly cheating on his wife (the unkind maxim about Kennedy women looking the other way on their philandering husbands definitely feeling accurate in this case), until it was outed that Schwarzenegger had father a love child with a maid (a story that conveniently happened when Schwarzenegger's political career was coming to a close).  The couple remained married for a decade after this, though, until 2021.

(Spoilers Ahead) The start of their marriage was happening when Schwarzenegger's film career 

was hitting a new height.  Freed of his contract with Dino de Laurentiis, he was able to start making major action films in the vein of someone like Sylvester Stallone, who at the time was a bigger star than Schwarzenegger in the genre even if that wouldn't last very long.  A big part of that was Predator in 1987, which featured Arnold as Major Dutch Schaefer on a rescue mission in Guatemala.  The film, like much of Arnold's movies of the 1980's, is short on actual plot.  All you need to know is that they are on a mission that will soon be deterred because they are being hunted by an extraterrestrial being that is not really referred to (the title word "predator" is never uttered in the movie).  His crew, one-by-one, is picked off, and it's left to Dutch to try to hunt the Predator largely solo, doing so through covering himself in mud (that disguises the creatures vision), eventually resulting him trapping the creature (and it then exploding itself in hopes of killing them both...which he doesn't).

Let's start with the movie and my thoughts before we talk about two oddities about this film in relation to Arnold's career.  First, it's a pretty good.  This is not Celine and Julie Go Boating or any such intellectual exercise as a picture, but it's solidly constructed and has a terrific special effects-driven bit of construction when it comes to the actual creature, both the invisibility effects and then (when it's revealed) the fantastically gross alien practical effects & makeup.  I also loved the film's Deliverance-style vibes, which honestly the further I get into this season, the more I realize that Deliverance had as much of an influence on action films as The Godfather did on mafia movies or Star Wars did on science-fiction.  The film also has one of my all-time favorite closing credits, which has all of the (mostly now dead) characters showing up again in title cards with the actors' names, all of them grinning cheesily like they're in a Mentos commercial...except Arnold who totally botches the concept by just being stoic.

Two things I want to note before we go here.  First, this stars Jesse Ventura in addition to Arnold Schwarzenegger-he plays heavy gunner Blain Cooper, one of the men who fall victim to the Predator in the film's first hour.  This is one of three films starring the two men, along with The Running Man and Batman & Robin.  Ventura would be elected the Governor of Minnesota in 1998 in one of the biggest upsets in American political history, five years before Schwarzenegger, and while they did not mirror each other stylistically in politics (Arnold was much more successful in the job & won reelection, Ventura was so unpopular he couldn't even run for a second term) they both represented a level of "entertainment being crucial in politics" that would come to a shocking result in 2016 on a national scale.

I will also end with this-the Predator films five sequels/prequels...none of which would feature Schwarzenegger.  Schwarzenegger refused to make the sequel due to a salary dispute.  This was also a deterrent in sequels to Conan the Destroyer, Eraser, Total Recall, and Kindergarten Cop, as well as a long-gestating sequel to Twins.  Not all of these are totally attributable to Schwarzenegger's salary disputes (Twins 2 was lost in development hell for decades and eventually crashed with the death of Ivan Reitman), but it's a testament to Schwarzenegger's ability at the box office that he could forego solid paychecks like this, as well as his alleged difficulty offscreen that would result in studios walking away not thinking he was worth the money (or the effort) even with probable hits on their hands.  Compare this to some of his contemporaries like Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren, & especially Sylvester Stallone, when sequels were being made, they tended to feature in them and take the easy paycheck (Jean-Claude van Damme, like Schwarzenegger, tended to not make it through negotiations).  This ended up being a blessing for Schwarzenegger for a while, we'll find with our final two movies, as going for an original concept (and with better directors) made him a much hotter property as a movie star than always needing to go back to the Rocky or Under Siege well.

Joan Kennedy (1936-2025)

On Wednesday, Joan Bennett Kennedy passed away at the age of 89.  Kennedy's death wasn't just the end of the life of a longtime public figure, but also the unofficial end of Camelot, the nickname for the roughly 1000 days that John F. Kennedy, Joan's brother-in-law was in the White House.  President Kennedy is oftentimes evoked now, even nostalgically by Republicans (some of whom incorrectly state he'd be a Republican if he was alive today, which pretty much defies all sense of logic), as a time of impossible hope, optimism, and above-all-else glamour, in Washington, something that in the Trump Era feels like a completely different world, so it feels somewhat fitting that Camelot couldn't survive Trump's second term in office.

For me, the Kennedys really were an entry point into a certain type of politics-as-hobby, and so there's an odd sense of sadness over her death that I didn't quite expect.  I have always had a fascination with presidents.  When I was about seven-years-old, my mom bought a book about the presidents (which I still have-it's actually on a shelf in front of me as I'm typing this) from the supermarket, which sounds more rudimentary than it was as it was as it was a proper reference book (for those who are too young to know this, supermarkets in small towns used to have the opportunity to sell things like encyclopedias and reference books from Funk & Wagnalls during certain times of years that you now would find exclusively online, or online as far as you would buy reference books at all, and were why so many of your grandparents ended up owning encyclopedia sets despite them being overall quite expensive).  I poured over that thing, learning everything about the presidents, memorizing their names quickly and the years that they served.

But it was the Kennedys, with their aura of glamour, sophistication, and unspeakable tragedy that was the real entry point for me into thinking about politics the way I do now-not just through facts & dates, but as a rounded story, something with a lot of characters.  Every presidency, if you look at it objectively, comes with countless supporting players like a novel or a TV series, and the Kennedys, with their expansive family tree was something that I couldn't get enough of.  I collected (and still do) magazines about the family, complete with family trees & a look at what not just President Kennedy and his senator brothers accomplished, but their family history of service, scandal, & power.  In eighth grade I couldn't have told you the starting lineup for the Minnesota Timberwolves or the members of most rock bands, but I could name every single one of the Kennedy cousins, and their far more famous aunts & uncles.

All of those aunts & uncles are largely gone now.  While many of the Kennedy cousins still make news despite their age and depleting numbers (particularly First Daughter Caroline Kennedy and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.), Joan Kennedy's death leaves only one of their aunts, Vicki Kennedy (Ted Kennedy's second wife) behind.  And while the former US Ambassador to Austria is accomplished and one of the family's most prominent members now, she only entered the family in 1992, and so had no real connection to the time when the family was the most powerful in America.

However, Joan did.  Married to Ted Kennedy after a whirlwind courtship, Joan Kennedy was the "loose cannon" of the Kennedy wives.  While Jackie and Ethel were placid, forever perfect in the public eye and in many ways a strange combination of intense formality and emerging modernity in the 1960's, Joan Kennedy always felt to me as far more willing to buck the norm.  You could see this with her fashion-there's a famous picture of Joan Kennedy meeting President and Mrs. Nixon a few months after they won the White House.  Pat Nixon looks regal in a mother-of-the-bride silk dress, but it's Joan in a mod, well-above-the-knee mini skirt with mountains of blonde hair & flashy pumps that steals focus.  As the 1960's were ending, the wife of the most prominent Republican in America looked like Loretta Young...the wife of the most prominent Democrat looked like the far hipper Julie Christie or Nancy Sinatra.

Joan Kennedy, unlike Pat Nixon, would never become First Lady, despite her husband's attempt at the office in 1980, and they would divorce not long after Ted's presidential ambitions clearly would never be realized.  She had endured mountains of tragedy by then.  Repeated miscarriages in the 1960's were coupled with her husband's very public infidelities, most notably involving the death of Mary Jo Kopechne (Sen. Kennedy has publicly denied having a romantic involvement with Kopechne, but many think this strains credulity given his acknowledged affairs at the time).  Joan would attend Kopechne's funeral despite doctor's warnings...and soon after suffer her third miscarriage.  She would have three children grow to adulthood, all of whom would suffer health problems, particularly her daughter Kara who died 14 years before her mother from a heart attack.

When people think of Joan outside of her connection with her marriage into the Kennedy clan, they likely associate her with her struggles with alcoholism.  Though it's de rigueur now, in the late 1970's and early 1980's it was incredibly unusual for famous people to talk about drug addiction publicly.  Kennedy, along with Betty Ford & Elizabeth Taylor, was one of the first really famous people to open up about their struggles with the disease, talking about it in national magazines while her husband was the most well-known man in Congress.  This showed an incredible bravery, though she doesn't always get credit for it given that, unlike Ford & Taylor, she frequently relapsed in the years that followed, with drunk driving arrests, probation, and medical issues following.  In 2005, at one point one of the most famous women in America was found lying in a street with a broken shoulder, eventually being put in the care of her children.

But anyone who knows the Kennedy Myth and has followed the family knows that it comes with equal parts fame and sorrow, and few embodied that quite like Joan Kennedy.  While the Kennedys continue to be a part of the national conversation, her death marks the end of a chapter for the family and America's obsession with it, the last of the major figures of Camelot to finally reach Avalon.

Can the Kennedys Return to Congress?

Jack Schlossberg (D-NY)

The Kennedys have been in the news a lot recently, primarily with HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. deciding to usher back an era of the measles and communicable diseases by eliminating funding for vaccines, something that (it should be noted) Susan Collins & Bill Cassidy heartily supported.  Kennedy's own sister Kerry has called for him to resign, and has gone out of her way to support the Democrats that have tried to stop her brother from holding this position (specifically Joe Biden & Kamala Harris).  But today I don't want to talk about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but instead a different relative who is considering a run for Congress: President John F. Kennedy's grandson, Jack Schlossberg.

Schlossberg's candidacy comes as a result of the recent announcement that longtime Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) will retire.  Nadler represents one of the wealthiest and most high-profile congressional districts in the country, encompassing entirely the mid-section of Manhattan (and the media empires that are housed within it).  Someone on Twitter made a joke that there are more "potential candidates" in this district than in any in the country and given its median income is $75k (the highest of any in the country), they weren't wrong-celebrities, millionaires, local office-holders, & countless political scions call this district their home.

So many, in fact, it looked initially that Schlossberg wouldn't even be the only presidential offspring in the race (if he does indeed run, which is being telegraphed but isn't yet official).  Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of President Bill Clinton & Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was talked up for the race but has since tamped down these rumors.  This is worth noting because I think Chelsea's position (her brand of celebrity, seeming lack of scandal, and connections, not to mention being the only potential heir to the Clinton political dynasty) would've been impossible to beat, even in a crowded field.  Had she run, Clinton would've not only won, but would've quickly set up a potential battle royale with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for a future Senate race in the Empire State.

Schlossberg, on the other hand, I don't think will have that same clear-the-field power.  For starters, he's younger (just 32) and not nearly as famous as Clinton would be.  His online behavior is also, let's say, occasionally odd, especially in comparison to Clinton, who has been the quintessential "well-behaved" First Daughter since the 1990's (often at odds with figures like Patti Davis and, in her early years, Jenna Bush Hager).  He frequently, during the campaign last year, made flirty videos on TikTok about JD Vance, courted controversy by comparing Usha Vance's looks to that of his grandmother Jackie, and he can be seen online walking around in his underwear.  Schlossberg seems to court a specific type of younger, social media-raised vibe (particularly that of an unusually attractive, insanely privileged rich white guy), combining an "anything goes" social media attitude with a bizarre quirkiness that earned comparisons to his mother's cousins from Grey Gardens.

As a result, I doubt any of the many candidates for the seat, ranging from local politicians like State Sen. Liz Krueger & State Rep. Micah Lasher to glossier names like former Rep. Carolyn Maloney and actress Cynthia Nixon, will step aside for Schlossberg, but it's also worth noting that presidential offspring regularly run for political office, so Schlossberg has a lot of company in this department.  While we know of people like the Bush, Adams, & Harrison dynasties (all where sons/grandsons of presidents would eventually take the White House too) there's a long history of presidential children trying to run for office.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. and James Roosevelt both served in Congress (both would eventually lose races for Governor, trying to follow in their dad's footsteps), while John Eisenhower & Caroline Kennedy were both Ambassadors.  James Roosevelt III is a high-ranking official in the DNC, while the Taft family would basically run the Ohio Republican Party for decades, taking seats in both the House & Senate, as well as having a turn in the Governor's mansion.  It's really common to use the connections & goodwill of your last name to run for office.

But perhaps more notable would be what Schlossberg's run would mean for the Kennedy Family, which has gone from being the quintessential First Family of the Democratic Party (both Caroline & her aunt Vicki served in the Biden administration) to essentially having their name prominently displayed in the Trump White House.  No Kennedy has held major elected office in the United States since 2020, when Rep. Joe Kennedy III lost a Democratic primary for the US Senate in Massachusetts (the first time a Kennedy had ever lost a race in the Bay State), and with the death of Ethel Kennedy last year (the matriarch of the clan), their political capital feels on fumes if they don't start to exercise real power by winning elections again.  Joe Biden, Barack Obama, & Bill Clinton all delivered eulogies at Ethel Kennedy's funeral...it's highly unlikely any other member of the Kennedy family could demand that kind of lineup.  Schlossberg's personal foibles are hardly the great making of a candidate, but as someone who has followed this family a long time, I can tell you...idiosyncrasies and scandals have never stood in the way of the Kennedy's before.

Thoughts on the Week's News: Michigan Senate, Trump Nominations, & Emilia Perez

It's been a long week, and so I'm treating myself to a little article today, talking about three major moments in the news that have been dominating my mind.  Let's talk through it, shall we?

Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI)

1. Gary Peters Retires from the Senate

The biggest electoral news of the week came in one of the country's most important swing states.  After two terms in office, Sen. Gary Peters is retiring next year and foregoing a third.  While it shouldn't be news that a 66-year-old man is retiring, in the Senate this barely counts as middle age (Peters is the 47th oldest member of the Senate to give you some perspective).

The goal today is going to be for me to give opinions, not necessarily a full lesson on each of these, so I'm going to state a few opinions as facts right now to get it out of the way.  I think that Peters retiring is a good thing.  2026 is likely going to be a good year for the Democrats, and we do, in fact, need to replace our aging senators with younger people so that, for example, if 2032 is a tougher cycle, we have incumbents who can win seats that we might've lost in open seat elections (Jacky Rosen & Tammy Baldwin probably saved us two seats in 2024 because they were established quantities and newcomers).  This is a good cycle for Peters to retire, and I hope other aging Democrats like Dick Durbin, Jeanne Shaheen, & Jack Reed follow his lead later this cycle.  I know some people like to take retirements as tea leaves of where the Senate is expected to land in 2026 (i.e. Peters doesn't think Dems will win a majority), but I'm more practical about these things, and getting senators a couple decades younger is a good investment for our party's future.

In terms of who should run to replace him, my first and last thought was initially Gretchen Whitmer.  Whitmer is a superstar, currently the person I most want to be our nominee in 2028, and I would love to see her in the Senate.  But she likely won't run because why run for the Senate when you clearly want to run for POTUS, and so we're left with a Plan B (she has already declined and I doubt she changes her mind).  Most Democrats focused on former Transportation Secretary (and 2020 presidential hopeful) Pete Buttigieg.  Buttigieg moved to Michigan a couple of years ago, and would be a moron not to run.  Buttigieg, like Whitmer, is certainly eying a 2028 presidential run as well, but he is also a decade younger than her, and has much less experience (his only electoral achievement is as a mayor of a small town...she's the wildly popular governor of one of the nation's most important swing states).  Buttigieg needs to prove that he can win a major office like the US Senate in order to be seen as a serious contender for the White House outside of DuPont Circle, and his aura won't last forever as an out-of-work politician.  He needs to make this move soon-he should run.

As a Democrat, though, my final thought is-I don't know if he is the right choice for our nominee.  Buttigieg has shown little appeal outside of a core Democratic constituency (namely, college-educated, affluent white voters, a coalition we don't have any trouble with), and while a campaign could show he does, I do think Democrats shouldn't coalesce around him without knowing if he can actually win a campaign.  State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, for example, has also shown herself to be an impressive future star in the Democratic Party that is in search of a higher office.  Her appeal feels broader than Buttigieg's to me, and ultimately the most important thing here is winning the seat (neither of these candidates' future presidential ambitions are worth more than that).  I personally think McMorrow might end up being the better candidate, but I hope both run (and honestly, I kind of hope no one else serious does because otherwise this just becomes the Buttigieg Show), so we can find out.

HHS Secretary Nominee Robert Kennedy, Jr.

2. Trump Confirmations Move Through

One thing you will absolutely not hear from me in the coming years is discussions about the policies of the Trump administration.  Quite frankly, I'm only checking in when I think I can make a difference.  The outrage cycles are going to exhaust us all...my focus is on 2026, 2028, and helping the people that I can through other actions (and holding my congressional delegation to task if they look like they're going off-track, which I doubt as they're all progressive Democrats).  But America made its bed, it deserves to suffer for a bit in my personal estimation.

But what I want to mention here is the electoral impact of the confirmations.  Matt Gaetz is obviously no longer in contention to lead the Justice Department, and Tulsi Gabbard's nomination weirdly seems the most in trouble so far (which honestly I did not predict given Gabbard is a relatively good public speaker and a former member of Congress...I figured that would give her some ability to grease the wheels on her own behalf).  But Pete Hegseth has now been confirmed, and it looks like Republicans will get Kash Patel and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. through at the rate.  The only Republicans who have indicated they might stray from these three (and we don't know if this will be uniform) are Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitch McConnell, and thanks to Bob Casey's loss last year, they're not enough.

Which brings me to Thom Tillis.  With the exception of Susan Collins (who is her own unique unicorn of electoral calculation), Tillis is the only Republican senator from a swing state that is up in 2026.  He is also expected to face a very good candidate (former Gov. Roy Cooper) in the general election.  Yet his actions of being the deciding vote on Hegseth, and leading the charge on Patel (and so far indicating he is in favor of RFK Jr. leading HHS) are the actions of a man worrying about a primary more than a general election, and I'm going to be honest-that's a bad strategy.  Kennedy and Hegseth are not just unqualified & hold unpopular beliefs...they're also incompetent.  You can practically smell the future scandals about to erupt here, and while Trump might not pay a price for this, Tillis will.  These are the rare congressional votes that will matter, and I'll go so far as to say this-if Tillis backs Kennedy at the end of the day, I think he's the underdog next year to hold the seat.

Karla Sofia Gascon in Emilia Perez

3. Emilia Perez Oscar chances

We're shifting gears away from politics into the movies, and specifically the Oscar chances of one Emilia Perez.  I have not been shy on social media or Letterboxd about how I think this is a truly terrible film, but with 13 nominations, it was hard until about 72 hours ago to argue it had become the nominal frontrunner for Best Picture of 2024.  When you make Oscar predictions, you need to check your own taste at the door.  In fact, a few days ago, leading Oscar site NextBestPicture's pundits had Emilia Perez favored for five wins: Best Picture, Film Editing, Supporting Actress, International Feature, and Original Song.

But then the shit hit the fan.  An already polarizing film added to its count a director making xenophobic comments; Jacques Audiard talked about how Spanish was the "language of the poor and migrants."  This looks like small potatoes compared to what leaked about the nominated lead of the film Karla Sofia Gascon, who has years (though up to the shockingly recent present given how long Netflix has been pimping this movie) of racist, violent, and cruel social media tweets, attacking everyone from Muslims to the Chinese to Oscar-winning singer Adele.  Gascon has now become toxic (it's hard, in retrospect, to imagine why this didn't leak earlier given that Oscar favorites Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, & Amy Adams were all in the running but got ignored by someone who is now virtually unemployable in Hollywood...AMPAS could've saved itself a lot of trouble by just thinking inside the box).  There was talk about having each of the nominees introduced by former winners, but I doubt any publicist is willing to go there for their clients (somewhere Conan O'Brien is nervously wondering why he didn't let Jimmy Kimmel go again).

Here's the reality though-the nominations are set.  The Oscars have rescinded nominations in the past, but that was over breaking of Academy rules, which neither Audiard or Gascon have done.  Anyone telling you that they might lose their nominations is not aware of Academy history (or of Oscar winners Roman Polanski, Harvey Weinstein, & Mel Gibson).  But what it could do is lose awards it was expected to win.  Best Picture & Editing, for example, it was only nominally leading at NBP, and I would imagine in the coming days the film will fall out of grace in both categories to films like The Brutalist and Conclave (some will quickly want to say that The Brutalist also has controversies, but honestly...the only controversy I see mattering this year is the one for Emilia Perez because it's very understandable, enough so that the public cares & Oscar doesn't want to be seen rooting for it).

The other three it is the decided frontrunner.  International Feature Film at least has an obvious second place (the surprise Best Picture nominee I'm Still Here), but Song and Supporting Actress it's harder to find a way to avoid an Emilia Perez win.  Best Original Song Emilia Perez has two nominations, so vote-splitting is theoretically possible, but none of the other nominees are obvious winners to compete with a Best Picture-nominated musical.  This would honestly be the perfect time to give the statue to Diane Warren, who has never won a competitive Academy Award, but will enough of the Academy get the memo?  In Supporting Actress you have Ariana Grande in second, but as a pop star they probably will make her pay some dues first (Lady Gaga and Cher also didn't win on their first acting nominations), and neither Felicity Jones nor Monica Barbaro have the sort of work that gets you a win.  Honestly, Isabella Rossellini would be intriguing (Best Picture frontrunner(?), well-liked film, longtime movie star who has never won, generally beloved as a celebrity, Old Hollywood glamour) if she could pull it off.  If she was in second place instead of Grande, I'd think Zoe Saldana was in more trouble...but I currently don't see a shut-out on the horizon for the combusting Emilia Perez

Robert Kennedy Jr. Drops Out of the Race for the White House

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with
former President Donald Trump

I didn't get to every article I was planning on today (I said 4-5 for a reason this morning, because I had five in mind), but I am going to fulfill my promise and get the fourth done with our fifth hopefully snuck in tomorrow.  Our last today will be, of course, on Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s bizarre (and messy) dropping out of the 2024 presidential election.

First, let's talk about what exactly happened here.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr's journey to his independent presidential run is bizarre given how long he's been in politics, and how for many years, he was considered to be a pretty standard-issue Democrat.  The son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, he was most known in the 1980's & 1990's for his work in environmental law, and was considered for roles in hypothetical Gore & Kerry administrations.  At one point he was rumored to be President Obama's first-term EPA Administrator, but the job went to Lisa Jackson.  This was the last time that Kennedy was in the news for something good, however, at least if you use the metric of "good for his career in Democratic politics."  Kennedy became one of the most prominent figures in the anti-vaccination movement, calling vaccines, which he claim cause autism (this has been repeatedly debunked), akin to "the holocaust."  He gained multiple headlines for his conspiracy theories around Covid-19, specifically those related to Anthony Fauci & Bill Gates, and has falsely claimed there is no connection between HIV and AIDS.  

Honestly, this sort of "family member jumps over the deep end of Facebook conspiracies" has become all too common in Trump's America, but Kennedy, because of his last name, had this play out on the front pages of newspapers and magazines rather than over the Thanksgiving table.  His siblings Kathleen & Joseph, as well as his nieces Maeve & Kerry (both daughters of Kathleen), the latter of whom is an MD, have put out statements condemning his views on vaccines, and have spent years distancing themselves from their brother/uncle.  But given the fame of his name, they were not successful, and RFK Jr. ran a presidential campaign in 2024, first running in the Democratic Primaries, and then (after it was clear he'd gained no traction), running as an independent, becoming the fifth member of the Kennedy family to seek the White House (his Uncle Jack was president in 1960, his dad ran in 1968 but died during the primaries, his uncle-through-marriage Sargent Shriver briefly ran for president in 1976, and his uncle Ted ran in 1980...all four of them as Democrats).

The campaign has been a fascinating case of Schrodinger's Candidacy from my vantage point.  Kennedy filled a void that was clearly needed in the race, and for a while, he was running an impressive set of numbers (for a third party candidate) against a Biden/Trump rematch.  In December he hit 22% in a Quinnipiac poll, which was a high-point, but he regularly came in in the 10-15% range with Biden in the race, which would've made him the best third party candidate since Ross Perot in 1992.  Part of this was coasting off of two things-his famous name and the fact that the country clearly had a contingency that didn't want either of these two men running.  Kennedy's views on a number of issues were well outside of the mainstream...him not being able to participate in debates (which he may well have qualified for under certain polls) was a blessing for him because any press that actually showed him to the American people was going to hurt his campaign.  But what actually hurt him was Kamala Harris entering the race.  Much of the wind in his sails was taken out as Democrats who "wanted someone other than Joe Biden" got what they wanted and lined up behind Harris almost instantly, which cut RFK's already dwindling support down to below 5%, a good chunk of which was going to Donald Trump.

Kennedy with his running-mate Nicole Shanahan

And this was when Kennedy showed his true colors.  This candidacy was not about his views, or about beating Trump and Biden...it was about beating Biden and getting into a Trump cabinet.  When it was obvious that he was hurting Trump, his running-mate Nicole Shanahan channeled to the press that they were considering dropping out because they were hurting Trump more than Biden, and that's what they did, both endorsing Trump on Friday.  Kennedy seemed to imply that he would still like votes in solid red/blue states but not to vote for him in swing states, but honestly...that's not what will happen.  By-and-large, his campaign from a practical standpoint is over.

The question I have been asked a few times since he dropped out is-what does this mean?  First off, I'm not entirely sure.  This happens during the sugar high of a very successful DNC, so getting a good read on polls in general in the next week will be a challenge.  I think Trump hoped that this would get after Harris in the same way that Biden dropping out hurt Trump's post-RNC bump...I don't think that'll work that way, mostly because there's very little from RFK's polling to be gained.  Even if he gained all of it, Trump would probably go back to polling even with Harris...and that's a steep hill to cross.  I think at least a chunk of the RFK votes won't go to either candidate, and at least some will go to Harris rather than Trump.  Trump will gain the majority, but not a huge majority, and that won't help much with his gap; Nate Silver (whom I normally don't reference but he did the math so I'm going to make an exception here) thinks that Trump's gain from this could be about 0.3 points in the polling averages, which is basically nothing.  

It's also worth noting that Kennedy has missed the deadline in a lot of states to get off of the ballot.  In Michigan, for example, a key swing state, the deadline has passed and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has confirmed he'll stay on the ballot.  Even with a dead campaign, people will vote for him.  And other states will follow-Kennedy missed the deadline to get off of the ballot in Washington, and has not given an indication he'll take his name off in Iowa, whose deadline is this upcoming Thursday.  I'll be real here-the main question I'm not getting from this is why is Kennedy not trying to get off the ballot everywhere-he's hurting Trump, at the very least, in his quest to take the popular vote, and he's not launching a third party movement (this isn't like Ralph Nader wanting to keep party access for the Green Party, for example), so what's he getting out of this?  I genuinely have no clue.  Does he still want to be in third place for the 2024 election, just for bragging rights (truly, that's my best guess), because I am curious depending on how many ballots he's on if Chase Oliver (the Libertarian) will get more votes than Kennedy at this rate.  And if he does, we're looking at a situation like 2004/2012/2020, where third party candidates are basically a non-entity in the race, and will struggle to collectively get to more than about 2% of the vote (which was definitely not going to be the case with Kennedy as an active candidate).

The end result here when you look beyond the ballot box, though, is that Trump has gotten a second dose of weird to his candidacy.  He has made a potentially smart move (if RFK Jr. was taking more votes from him than Harris, this helps him no matter the cynicism about the move), though he almost certainly promised Kennedy a cabinet position (Trump hinted publicly that this would be the HHS Secretary job), which given Kennedy's views on vaccination is hardly something that Trump wants to be too public & linked to his campaign in the coming months (i.e. Kennedy makes for a very risky surrogate, and the RNC is over-he can't even highlight him there).  As for Kennedy, he has fully committed to the Trump machine, and likely made his relationship with his siblings eternally toxic.  Five of his siblings (Kathleen, Courtney, Kerry, Chris, & Rory) have publicly stated that his endorsement is a "betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear."  His cousin Jack Schlossberg, who got a prime speaking slot at the DNC and seems to be the family's most prominent future-facing figure, said "RFK Jr. is for sale, works for Trump.  Bedfellows and loving it" on Twitter.  

A lot of our relatives are going to be in for a wake-up call when they realize Facebook isn't real (and if, as polls are increasingly indicating, Kamala Harris becomes the next President of the United States).  For the Kennedy Family, though, they're going to have to deal with that after their brother-and-uncle became a national pariah and punchline.

The RFK Jr Campaign Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (I-NY)

We will see how much of this I get out in the next few days, but I currently have five political topics (in addition to getting to some actual races in the 2023 OVP) that I want to do on the blog in the coming days, but I am also trying to have a super productive week on other topics, so we'll how it goes.  My hope is to get it all done, as I think all five political topics (and of course the 2023 races) are intriguing (and at least a couple are time sensitive).

We're going to start with a conversation about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is currently running as an Independent for the White House.  This past week, a top campaign official on Kennedy's team said something that felt telling, albeit telling in the way that you're saying "the quiet part out loud."  Rita Palma, who according to CNN is Kennedy's campaign director in New York, stated that the campaign's "No. 1 priority is to get rid of Biden."  I'll clarify that she was speaking specifically about Kennedy's campaign in New York, not his national campaign, but it's a telling sign that Kennedy wants to specifically beat Biden in New York, not make things more difficult for Donald Trump.

Let's take a step back to point out a few things.  First, the goal of third party campaigns is rarely to actually win the White House, even that's what they claim to the public.  The last third party candidacy that had a shot at winning the White House in public polling was Ross Perot in 1992, whom, it's worth noting, despite winning 19% of the public vote, received exactly zero electoral college victories (the closest he got was Maine's second congressional district, which he got within 5-points of taking from Bill Clinton).  No third party candidate has won an electoral college vote on their own since George Wallace in 1968, and while there have been some that have made serious overtures since Perot (specifically Evan McMullin in Utah in 2016), most are running for other reasons.  They might be running on single-issue campaigns (like around marijuana legalization) or are running to raise awareness about a specific issue (like climate change or racial justice).  Or...they're running to be a spoiler.

Whether or not that's the actual case, in the past thirty years, save for Perot & McMullin, this has been the role of any third party candidate that you can actually name.  Ralph Nader, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, even Kanye West...all of them were running with the most meaningful thing they could do is throw the race to another party, in all of these cases, the Republicans (Johnson is debatable, the other three are not).  That is the case with Kennedy-he is 100% running with the intent of being a spoiler in the race, and it is clear not just from his campaign staff's public statements, but also in the way he's conducting his campaign.  Kennedy's condoning of the actions of those who participated in the January 6th attacks on the Capitol is just one of many entreaties that Kennedy has made in an effort to show a stronger alignment with Donald Trump than with Joe Biden.

You might be asking yourself a pretty obvious question here-if Kennedy is aligning himself with Donald Trump, doesn't that put Trump (who is, like Joe Biden, wildly unpopular) more at risk of losing votes to Kennedy than Biden?  That's not a bad question to be asking at this point in the race.  Kennedy's views on vaccines, the attacks on January 6th, and in particular his penchant for supporting conspiracy theories are very much aligned with the Republicans than the Democrats in 2024.  If Kennedy were to get the same kind of coverage in the presidential election that Joe Biden or Donald Trump did, I think the Trump camp would need to be worried, and it's possible he will.  His polling is decent enough at this point that he might be invited to a debate, or at the very least major news outlets will continue to treat his candidacy more seriously than those of Stein or McMullin.

But I still think Kennedy (currently) poses a greater threat to Joe Biden for three reasons.  First is that he wants to beat Biden; it's clear that of the two, Kennedy prefers Trump, and that is dangerous because if he's lucid enough to know that he's going to hurt one of the candidates, he'll make a point of hurting Biden.  This is why he's trying to get on the ballot in Arizona, Michigan, & North Carolina, all crucial swing states that Biden is going to need at least one of to get the White House.  Second, Kennedy's views on other issues (such as gay marriage & abortion access) are more moderate than your average Republican (i.e. he's not as conservative as Trump), albeit they shift depending on the day you ask him.  Put it this way-if Kennedy was an actual voter, and not a candidate who has made public statements & signaled their preference, I would be genuinely curious who they were voting for for the White House in November.

President Biden with dozens of members of the Kennedy
Family this past St. Patrick's Day

And third is: he's a Kennedy.  Kennedy is not well-known to the public, and so I guarantee if you asked most people voting for him they'd either say "he's different" or assume that he is more progressive than he actually is because of his family name.  It is entirely possible this is where the race stays for low-propensity voters...that they will go into the election booth, and the only thing that they know about the guy is that his father and uncles were US Senators (and one was US President), and vote for him assuming he's the same guy.  And those voters that are impressed by the Kennedy name are going to be Democrats or moderate/swing Republicans (i.e. the type that will vote for Nikki Haley but not Donald Trump), all of whom are winnable by Joe Biden (and in fact, he needs to win to get a second term).

This is where the Biden campaign I suspect takes the cue.  Frequently with third party candidates, the best idea is to ignore them, and pretend they don't exist but you aren't seeing that from Democrats.  They are going after Kennedy pretty hardcore, and that's because they're taking his polling seriously.  The best way they can do this is through using the Kennedy brand against RFK Jr, and you're seeing Biden do that.  Four of Kennedys siblings (Rory, Kerry, Joe, & Kathleen) publicly admonished their brother and announced their support for Joe Biden, and in the months since several other high-profile members of his family (including his cousins Caroline & Patrick, nephew Joe III, and aunt Victoria) have publicly endorsed Biden, and indeed an entire group of Kennedys were at the White House for St. Patrick's Day, basically a billboard for the Kennedy support of Biden.

Expect to see more of this in the coming months-I would bet my next paycheck that before this campaign is over, members of the Kennedy family will cut an ad for Biden that he can air in states where RFK Jr. might be a threat.  This wouldn't be the first time this has happened, after all; Rep. Paul Gosar's siblings cut an ad for his opponent in his House campaign in 2018.  The Kennedy family branding is at stake here too-if the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joins figures like Ralph Nader & Jill Stein (basically swear words in the Democratic Party), it will reflect poorly on them, and their power within the Democratic Party will waver.  A Biden victory is also a Kennedy victory...except for one black sheep that's trying to elect a man his father would've been repulsed by.  

Who is the Most Viable Third Party Candidate?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (I-NY)

Third party presidential candidates have been around since at least 1812 (depending on your definition, they might even be earlier), and have largely been, well, a nuisance in the political process.  The last time a third party presidential candidate won a state was in 1968 (George Wallace), and since the 1860's (when the Democratic & Republican Parties became dominant the United States), only once has a third party candidate won more votes than either the Democratic or Republican candidates for president...and in that case, it was a former president (Teddy Roosevelt) who did it, so it was less about third party and more about "Bring Back Roosevelt."

Third party candidates are a focus in political discourse not because they are going to be president, therefore, but because they are spoilers.  We have seen this many times, most blatantly in most Americans' lifetimes in the year 2000, when Ralph Nader's vote share in Florida was more than enough to have cost Vice President Al Gore the White House...and in the process ushered in eight years of President George W. Bush, which meant the Republicans won the Supreme Court for at least another couple of decades.  Other third party bids in 1968, 1980, & 2016 might not have had cost the Democrats the White House, but they definitely hurt their candidacies.

In 2024, it appears we may have a number of third party candidacies.  This past week, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) announced that she was considering a run as a way to "stop Donald Trump" if she felt that Joe Biden (or other Republicans) couldn't do it.  If she ran, she would be joined by attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (son of the late New York senator with whom he shares a name and nephew to President John F. Kennedy), Dr. Cornel West (a well-known academic & activist), Dr. Jill Stein (a former Green Party candidate in 2012 & 2016), and potentially Sen. Joe Manchin, the moderate West Virginia senator who has been heavily courted by the No Labels movement.  Polling shows these figures, particularly Kennedy, in strong shape in a presidential candidacy, at least by third party standards; Kennedy, while in third place, if the debate qualifying period was today, would be the first third party candidate since Ross Perot in 1992 to qualify for the presidential debate.  

Dr. Jill Stein (G-MA)

But that polling is, well, stupid this far out.  People oftentimes talk about how polling 11 months out from an election is not indicative, and they're right.  What they're particularly right about, though, is that third party support tends to crater the closer you get to an election.  The primary reason that happens is because the American voting system (outside of Maine & Alaska) doesn't allow for you to cast a second place ballot.  Most states don't have Ranked-Choice Voting, and people don't want to vote for a loser.  Therefore, even if they might align with Stein or Kennedy or West more, they'll abandon them if they aren't viewed as serious candidates to actually win.  One of the main reasons that you can tell most third party candidacies are about ego & fame (rather than actually winning) is that very few candidates focus their careers on enacting RCV laws across the country, which if they were in every state, would allow for third party options to actually move forward.

That being said, third party candidacies are to be taken seriously.  They cost Gore the election in 2000, and Jill Stein certainly got enough votes in 2016 that (had all of those people voted for Hillary Clinton instead), Donald Trump would've been selling commemorative plates on Fox News in 2017 rather than serving in the Oval Office.  Third party candidacies, particularly ones that hurt one specific party (in presidential politics this century, that's been almost always the Democrats with the exception of Evan McMullin in 2016), can cost them states, and with that, put the White House at risk.

But here's the deal-if you look at the candidates I just listed, the one who polls the best is not one of the candidate I'm the most worried about: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  Kennedy is polling well, in my opinion, because he's a Kennedy.  People are picturing someone like his nephew Rep. Joe Kennedy III or his sister Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, someone who is a generic public servant, but younger than Joe Biden & Donald Trump.

But RFK Jr. is not a generic Kennedy-he is very much the family's black sheep (and this is the Kennedys we're talking about...black sheep are not in short supply).  Kennedy is an anti-vaxxer, and has waffled publicly on his stance on abortion.  He has indulged in conspiracy theories around Covid-19 (saying the virus targeted specific racial demographics), said that mass shootings are linked to prescription drugs, has stated that the 2004 presidential election was stolen, and says that vaccines cause autism (none of which are true).  Kennedy has also admitted to flying on the Epstein jet (which would admittedly mean he's got that in common with Donald Trump).  Kennedy does have some liberal views, specifically on foreign policy & the environment, that would put him more in-line with Biden, but his biggest problem is he's weird, and not charismatic like a Kennedy normally is.  His polling feels inflated because of his famous last name...it won't stand up to long-term scrutiny.

The same can be said for West & Stein.  Cornel West's personal finances indicate that this run might have more to do with bankrolling his lifestyle than anything else, and without an extensive fundraising apparatus (which, unlike Kennedy who has had proximity to political parties for decades, West doesn't easily have access to), he'll struggle to make it on the ballot in too many states.  Jill Stein is on her third run, and while she'd be the frontrunner given her name recognition in 2024 for the Green Party nomination, her past two runs are going to make it hard to win over additional support.  Also, if the country wants a younger president neither West nor Stein fit that bill, as they'll be 71 and 74, respectively, next year.  Both West & Stein could steal votes from Biden in a Florida 2000 election, true, but I doubt they matter much in a normal scenario.  More Kanye West, less Ralph Nader.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY)

So if you asked me whom I'm actually worried, it's Cheney or Manchin.  Weirdly, Cheney, who is much more conservative than Manchin, poses a greater risk to Biden than the actual Democratic senator does.  Cheney's run would be largely focused on preserving democracy, a noble cause to be sure (and one she's been pretty principled about), but there's no base for that in the Republican Party.  Any voters who are fans of Cheney's cause already are on Team Biden-she's not going to win over anyone with a run, and her candidacy would only be to peel off voters in states like Arizona or Georgia who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but then won Joe Biden the White House in 2020.  Unlike Kennedy or West, Cheney's a seasoned politician & one who (presumably) doesn't have a lot of skeletons in the closet because they would've come out by now.  Her run would feature a serious candidate, one with strong name recognition, who would only hurt Biden.  A bad scenario Democrats don't want.

It's not entirely clear who the audience for a Manchin candidacy would be, other than disaffected voters.  Manchin's politics, unlike Cheney's, run the gamut; he's similar to Kennedy, but without the conspiracy theories.  Manchin could be an avenue for Trump voters who can't stomach Biden, but would prefer to have a less crazy option than Trump (or are just tired of him at this point); think the people actively hoping for Nikki Haley to be the Republican nominee.  On the flip side, those moderate Romney-Biden voters might be interested in Manchin given he is the current poster child for moderation in the country, and is a skilled retail politician (though, like Biden, Trump, & Stein, he's old-Manchin will be 77 on Election Day next year).

It's worth noting that Cheney & Manchin are both only publicly considering runs, not actually doing them, and I would imagine that the Biden team is working behind-the-scenes (in Cheney's case, pleading with poll numbers that Biden's the only viable option, with Manchin...honestly offering him any ambassadorship in a second term that he wants) to keep them out of the race.  But for me, these are the two that make me nervous.  Kennedy, West, & Stein...they're just poll numbers of people who are pissed about a Biden/Trump rematch, and less people who are actually going to vote for these candidates when it comes down to voting.

Biden Will Be the Nominee in 2024 If He Wants to Be (and History Says He Does)

President Joe Biden (D-DE)

Normally we don't discuss the presidential election two years out on this blog, but I need one more re-watch before we do our next Oscar Viewing Project (I have seen all of the 2002 movies, and we'll be back to ballots right after this, but it's been 20 years since I've seen some of these films and a couple of them need a refresher that doesn't involve a teenager's eyes), and I honestly don't have a lot to say about the midterm environment right now (Democrats doing better than expected, but after several cycles that the polls overestimated the left, I am still struggling to read the tea leaves).  So we're going to break that rule to talk through something that's been bothering me about the race: the conversation about whether or not Joe Biden will run for a second term, and whether his current approval rating actually hurts his chances of getting through a primary (if he does run) without a serious primary challenge.

The reason I'm doing this is because while I hate talking races two years in advance, I love a history lesson, and I think that people are forgetting that these conversations always happen.  Leading up to 2012, there was a lot of talk about whether or not Barack Obama would shake up his ticket.  Proving how malleable politics is, the conversation was about whether or not he should remove Vice President Biden from the ticket to add on one of his most popular cabinet secretaries, Hillary Clinton (oh how the times have changed).  He didn't do that, and as a general rule within politics, you should respect Occam's Razor: that a president & vice president will run for reelection, and they will get the nomination of their party.

That's because, by-and-large, that's what always happens.  Since the passage of the 22nd Amendment over 70 years ago, only twice has an incumbent president voluntarily given up the White House, in 1952 (President Truman) and in 1968 (President Johnson).  The first was because Truman, who was exempt from the 22nd Amendment, had already served nearly eight years in office, and combined with massive unfavorable ratings and the fact that the country was clearly ready for a change after 20 years of the Democrats in the Oval Office, he declined.  President Johnson in 1968 was facing dismal approval ratings, spurred largely by the failure of the US to win the war in Vietnam, and was also in ill health.  After a surprisingly close race against Sen. Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire, and the subsequent entrance of Sen. Robert Kennedy into the presidential race, Johnson decided to forgo running for a third term.

Both of these men have something in common that they don't share with President Biden-they were in their second term.  No president since Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 has voluntarily foregone a run at a second term, and to assume that Biden would do so just because he is older is forgetting a lot of presidents (including Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt) received similar critiques but went ahead with runs again (whether these were well-advised or not is a conversation for a different day).  So while I think any conversation about 2024 is premature, if you must discuss the race, assume that President Biden will be running for the White House until told otherwise.

Conversely, you should also assume that he will be the nominee.  History bears this out as well, and particularly recent history bears it out, and I'll explain why.  First, the last time that a sitting president ran for his party's nomination and lost it was in 1884, when Chester A. Arthur lost the nomination.  It's simply not something that happens-the best candidate for the incumbent party is always the incumbent, even if they are unpopular, and history has shown us that time-and-time again.  Presidents Clinton & Obama had awful midterms, and looked like goners two years out from the election...they won in landslides.  It's true, yes, that people like Jimmy Carter & Donald Trump couldn't turn their numbers around, and I am not going to sit here and say that Joe Biden is a guaranteed win (he's not) but he's certainly not a guaranteed loss, and more pertinent to today, if he runs, he'll win the nomination.

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)

There's two reasons for that.  The first is borne out by Chester A. Arthur-when you throw out the incumbent president, or even when they face a tough primary, they tend to lose.  Arthur lost that nomination to James G. Blaine, a name you probably don't know as well as Grover Cleveland, and that's because Blaine lost that election, the only Republican presidential nominee between the Civil War and World War I to never become president.  If you look at more recent history, presidents who endure tough primaries tend to also lose, even if they win the nomination.  Gerald Ford faced off against Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1976, and while he (barely) won the primary, he lose the general a few months later to Jimmy Carter.  Four years later, Carter had to fend off Sen. Ted Kennedy and while the president won, he ended up losing the general election in 1980.

Kennedy is a good representation of the second reason as to why Biden will get through the primary unscathed as any, and it has as much to do with the Massachusetts senator as it does the election itself.  In 1980, when the senator took on Carter, Kennedy had a sense of inevitability to him.  While Chappaquiddick was something he could never outrun, Kennedy, in the wake of the deaths of his two older brothers he felt like a "future president" in a way few others had before him.  In running against Carter, though, he showed that the emperor had no clothes.  The golden boy lost to the peanut farmer, and though Reagan had staged a comeback four years later, Kennedy was not Reagan.  It's hard to believe now given he has become omnipresent in Republican politics after two landslide victories, but Reagan was assumed to be unelectable due to how conservative he was (in echoes of conversations we're having right now, Carter was hoping to have to face him in 1980 because he thought he'd be easier to beat).  Kennedy, on the other hand, had nowhere to go but down.  Had he waited and let Carter either win reelection or lose in 1980, he would've been pretty much unbeatable for the nomination in 1984 or 1988, as no other figure but a sitting president had the stature to best the Massachusetts senator on his first foray into presidential politics.  By losing in 1980, he proved himself to be vulnerable, and also angered a number of Democrats who thought he cost them a White House by damaging Carter in a race Kennedy couldn't win.  As a result, he joins people like Hillary Clinton and Bob Dole as political titans of their era who couldn't quite get over the last hump into the White House.

Kennedy's story is what will keep serious contenders out of the White House race if Biden is running.  Even Capitol Hill figures like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who have been critical of President Biden will likely skip such a race, knowing that it'd be unlikely to succeed and almost certainly would tarnish their brands permanently.  All of these polls that show Biden against people like Warren & Sanders are fool's errands.  If he runs, it will not be prominent Democrats but people like Andrew Yang, Nina Turner, or Mark Cuban running against him, all of whom the president will outpoll.  The conversations about 2024 make good copy, but they are pointless until Biden announces (which he won't do until at least spring 2023), and given he's almost certain to run for reelection, are pointless since if he runs, he wins.

12 Famous Unsolved Political Deaths

We have done a trio of articles about the most famous (and infamous) Hollywood murders that you can read here, here, and here, but I decided after three go-arounds with this series we'd sort of exhausted our options.  True crime discussions are endless (human nature makes sure of that), but the Hollywood stories that were remaining either had too little intrigue (they were either solved or seemingly had little to do with the Hollywood figure at the center of the crime), or were too tangentially-related to the movies (if you try hard enough, pretty much any crime in Los Angeles has a connection to the entertainment industry).

However, we don't just write about the movies on this blog, so we're going to do a one-time spinoff of this series with a fourth and final (unless something bizarre happens where I feel the need to write about it, I don't think any other crime articles will be here so this will be a series with a proper finale) look at crimes in American politics.  All of the stories we'll profile today are related in some fashion to politicians or political figures, and are long unsolved.

Writing about political mysteries presents its own unique challenges.  For starters, there aren't as many of them-most political crimes have been solved, and so even to get to twelve, we're going to have to get to at least one famous unsolved death, and only a couple of crimes that are confirmed homicides.  Secondly, it's weird discussing crimes because not only is the crime a horrible homicide, it's frequently an indictment on the beliefs of the person, and so it feels like an attack on other people's belief systems, and so it feels more personal.  I wasn't sure if I should write this from a sensitivity standpoint, but figured if we stuck to this in an analytical sort of way, it would feel okay.  I'm aware though that there's a heightened sensitivity to discussion of these crimes, and wanted to acknowledge that before we begin.

Which brings us to the third point-politics invites both passion, but also conspiracy theories.  Some of these crimes are among the most speculated about in American history.  We will discuss today, of course, the Kennedy assassination, which has literally filled entire books, but also crimes connected to presidents, organized labor, foreign governments, and high-ranking officials.  I'll make a point of separating fact from theory from total fiction, but if you're interested in learning more about these crimes or these figures, know that discussion of them gets bizarre depending on what corners of the web you head toward, and not all of it is steeped in evidence or the truth.  With that said, as a reminder this is discussing some heavy subject matter so if you are squeamish about such things, proceed with caution.

Rep. Nick Begich (D-AK), left, with House Majority Leader
Hale Boggs (D-LA)

Hale Boggs & Nick Begich

The DC Connection: Boggs was the House Majority Leader and Begich was a first-term congressman from Alaska.
The Death(?): On October 16, 1972, Boggs and Begich were on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau with two other men (the pilot and one of Begich's aides).  Boggs was out campaigning for Begich, who was in a tough re-election with State Sen. Don Young.  The plane disappeared, and despite exhaustive recovery efforts, neither the plane nor the four men on board were ever found.  They were declared legally dead on December 29th, 1972.
Why It's Unsolved: Unlike the other deaths listed here, there's no evidence that foul play was involved in the deaths of Boggs, Begich, and the other two men on board their flight.  What's bizarre about this is some of the things that happened afterwards.  For starters, as you're going to see in a number of these stories, Boggs had a massive connection to the Kennedy Family, and specifically the Kennedy assassination as a member of the Warren Commission.  Boggs was also highly critical of the FBI, calling for J. Edgar Hoover's resignation, and accusing the FBI of tapping the phones of members of Congress.  This invites a lot of room for conspiracy theories (the Kennedy assassination and the career of J. Edgar Hoover being breeding grounds for such things), but there are odd quirks about this case that should puzzle people.  Specifically, after Boggs & Begich disappeared, there was a tip called in stating that they knew the location of the flight that came from a number that a reporter found would later (and may have at the time) been associated with a pro-life conservative group with connections to then-President Richard Nixon.  Boggs had also reported two years earlier an attempt on his life where someone had tried to run him off the road.  And in the immediate aftermath of the crash, there were radio operators in Northern California who claimed (independently-multiple accounts here) that they heard of survivors of a crash.  The fact that no one has been able to tie together these loose ends, particularly the phone call and its weird connection to Nixon (who was a political foe of Boggs'), is unusual, and the lack of evidence forty years later of any bodies or plane keep this tragedy shrouded in mystery.

John Middleton Clayton
The DC Connection: At the time of his death, Clayton was involved in a tempestuous election against Rep. Clifton Breckenridge for an Arkansas congressional seat; he had also been a prominent member of the Arkansas state legislature.
The Murder: Clayton was a Republican state legislator in the late 1880's, who was in the middle of a contentious battle that has been described as one of the most corrupt in American history.  Clayton was initially declared the loser, but this was partially driven by a group of masked men stealing a ballot box from a predominantly black precinct (Clayton had overwhelming support from African-Americans). Before Clayton could successfully contest the election, he was shot & killed on January 29, 1889, through the window of a boardinghouse.
Why It's Unsolved: Clayton was definitely murdered, so that's not the unsolved part here-it's simply that his killer was never found, and from what I can find there's not really any suspects.  The circumstances of his death, considering that Arkansas politics at this time was deeply violent, suggest that he was killed in retaliation for contesting the election, but there's no proof of that-it's possible this was a complete coincidence.  Clayton was, it's worth noting, eventually declared the winner of the election by the House, but Breckenridge won the next election and held the seat until 1894, when he resigned to join the Cleveland administration

Jeffrey Epstein

The DC Connection: While Epstein himself was not a politician, he sure did run with a lot of them.  Among those who were his social acquaintance were Presidents Donald Trump & Bill Clinton, as well as former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The Murder(?): Talking about Epstein is inviting a horror show in the comments section, as discussions of him are a breeding ground for conspiracies, and as a result, more than anyone on this list, this might be the most challenging to discuss factually.  Essentially here's why this is considered a potential homicide.  Epstein, under trial, had been put on suicide watch three weeks before his death.  He was taken off of suicide watch, and was assigned a cellmate, but on the evening of his death on August 9th, he was not with a cellmate, and he was not looked in on every thirty minutes by a guard (as was required).  Instead the guards (who fell asleep) left Epstein alone for three hours.  When he was discovered, he had died of what Attorney General William Barr would call an "apparent suicide," likely caused as a result of hanging (using a sheet from his bunk bed).  
Why It's Unsolved: There are several major problems with the Epstein death's timeline, first that such a high-profile inmate would be essentially not looked on regularly feels like a stretch of credulity.  Considering the high profile nature of Epstein's crimes and whom they involved, that trained guards wouldn't follow protocol (and would literally fall asleep on the job) feels like an eyebrow raise.  Additionally, Epstein's injuries, particularly his broken hyoid bone, are more commonly associated with strangulation than suicide.  But more critically to the festering corners of the internet's most ardent conspiracy theorists is that Epstein's associations with some of the most powerful men on earth (not just the four I listed above, but also Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, Larry Summers, Harvey Weinstein, and, yes, even the aforementioned Bill Barr) buttressed agains the heinous nature of his crimes (he ran a child prostitution ring), would leave a lot of room for a lot of people to not want Epstein to speak publicly.

William Goebel

The DC Connection: DC connection isn't really a thing here, as Goebel never worked in the nation's capitol (from what I can tell).  However, he was a high-ranking politician, serving as Governor of Kentucky at the time of his death.
The Murder: The Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1899, like John Middleton Clayton's above, was one of the most notorious of the late-19th Century.  Goebel had faced State Attorney General William S. Taylor, and immediately after the election, it appeared that Taylor had won (despite the state being overwhelmingly Democratic and Taylor being a Republican).  Taylor was sworn in, but the state legislature was in the process of voting to overturn the election on January 30th, 1899, and considering the partisan lean of the state legislature, it was assumed that they would make Goebel the governor.  However, that morning Goebel was shot outside of the State Capitol, and taken to the hospital.  The state legislature did overturn the election results, making Goebel the governor, but it was too late-he would die less than a week later as a result of the shooting on February 3rd, becoming the only governor in American history to be assassinated.
Why It's Unsolved: It was largely assumed at the time that either Taylor or one of his supporters (principally Taylor's Secretary of State Caleb Powers) had some involvement in Goebel's death.  Taylor was never questioned on this, since he moved to Indiana quickly after, and the governor there refused to honor an extradition request.  While several of the men who were involved with the campaign were convicted of involvement, historical evidence of the crimes seem to indicate we'll likely never know who ultimately killed Goebel, and if Governor Taylor was involved with the crime.

Thomas Hindman

The DC Connection: Hindman was a one-term congressman from Arkansas, but is better-known to historians for his role in the Civil War, where he served as a major-general for the Confederate Army.
The Murder: On September 27, 1868, Hindman was shot to death at his home while reading to his children.  He survived long enough afterward to make plans for his wife and family while giving a heartfelt deathbed speech on his front porch, and then passing away at the age of 40.
Why It's Unsolved: Despite being a high profile figure in Arkansas, no one ever was charged with or convicted of killing Hindman, but a few theories continue to surround his death over 100 years later.  The chief one was that Hindman's death was related to a debate against Governor Clayton Powell, who was anti-slavery in a state that still was angry about the changes that were happening at the time due to losing the Civil War.  Rumors persisted that a black man had killed Hindman as retribution for a recent killing in his hometown of Helena of a black man, but there was no evidence of this (and in that era, if there had been any evidence, it would have surely led to an arrest, even if the evidence was flimsy).  As a result, Hindman's murderer remains unknown, with him being one of the most prominent politicians in American history to have been assassinated without even a trial resulting from his death.

Jimmy Hoffa

The DC Connection: Hoffa was the most storied member of the Teamsters, and a national fixture for decades.  He had complex relationships with both the Kennedys (who put him in jail) and the Nixon administration (which got him out of jail, just to watch that largely backfire in the years that followed).
The Murder(?): Hoffa disappeared on July 30th, 1975, after meeting with two high profile figures in the mafia (Anthony Provenzano and Anthony Giacalone).  Eyewitness reports of his last known appearances appear to have been at about 3 PM that day-he had called his wife, saying he would be home for supper (he did not show), and at least some witnesses reported seeing him as late as 2:30 that day.  Hoffa was never seen again alive, and was declared legally dead seven years after he disappeared.
Why It's Unsolved: Obviously, we don't know ultimately what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.  His body was never found, and we cannot confirm that he was, in fact, murdered.  But it is largely assumed that Hoffa, considering his longtime connections with organized crime, was killed by the mob.  The most common theory is that crime boss Russell Bufalino ordered the hit on Hoffa, and it was carried out by one of his men.  The film The Irishman largely follows this theory, assuming that professional hitman Frank Sheeran killed Hoffa, though there are those who dispute this story.  Regardless, Hoffa's legacy remains deeply associated with this disappearance, with some calling him a hero of the labor movement while others calling him an outright criminal.

Leon Jordan

The DC Connection: Again, Jordan isn't a DC politician, but a state-level one-he was a prominent Civil Rights activist in Missouri who eventually served three terms in the Missouri House of Representatives before he was murdered.
The Murder: Jordan was murdered on the morning of July 15, 1970.  He was outside of Green Duck Tavern in Kansas City, and was shot by a rifle by what appeared to be three African-American men (according to eyewitnesses at the time).  Jordan appears to have died immediately, at the age of 65.

Why It's Unsolved: No one was ever formally charged in the murder of Leon Jordan.  The rifle that was involved in the crime had been stolen from a hardware store years earlier, but while several men were arrested, no one was ultimately charged.  A Kansas City Star report in 2010 shockingly showed that the murder weapon involved in Jordan's death had actually entered back into circulation, and was found in the trunk of a police car as a result.  Their report indicated that Jordan's death may have been the result of a mob hit from Nicholas Civella, a leader of organized crime in Kansas City in the 1970's, but as everyone involved in their report had already died, no one faced trial, and Jordan's death is still officially unsolved.

John F. Kennedy

The DC Connection: I mean, if you have to ask...but John F. Kennedy was a congressman, senator, and eventually the 35th President of the United States.
The Murder: On November 22nd, 1963, President Kennedy was shot twice during a parade in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a car with his wife Jacqueline, Governor John Connally, and his wife Nellie.  Kennedy died instantaneously, while Gov. Connally sustained non-fatal injuries as a result of the attack.  Mrs. Connally reportedly heard Kennedy's last words, after she stated "well, Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you" to which he replied "No, you certainly can't."
Why It's Unsolved: Okay, so there are literally hundreds of books about the Kennedy assassination, many of them centered around whether Lee Harvey Oswald, who is the only credited person in the assassination (and who was subsequently assassinated by Jack Ruby) could have acted alone, a lot of which is predicated on the "single bullet theory" that the same bullet struck both President Kennedy & Governor Connally, something that both Governor & Mrs. Connally disputed the rest of their lives (essentially, the technology would not have been there to have both Kennedy & Connally being shot by two separate bullets, so if there were, indeed, two separate bullets, Oswald could not have acted alone).  If there was a second gunman, he or she was never found, and the official (but heavily disputed) stance is that Oswald acted alone.  In terms of his motives, it's also not clear, and conspiracy theories have raged for decades that everyone from the FBI to the Mafia to Vice President Johnson to Cuban President Fidel Castro was somehow involved in President Kennedy's death, arguably the most-analyzed crime in human history.

Chandra Levy

The DC Connection: Levy was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons who, prior to her death, was purportedly having an affair with California Congressman Gary Condit.
The Murder: Levy disappeared at the age of 24 on May 1, 2001.  Her disappearance was not reported until May 6th, when her parents told police they had not heard from their daughter in five days.  Both Levy's father and aunt told police that their daughter had been having an affair with Rep. Condit.  When they went to Levy's apartment, they found that her credit cards, cell phone, & suitcases (which were partially packed) were still there, indicating that she had not fled.  On May 22nd, 2002, Levy's body was found in a DC-area park, and medical examiner's officially declared Levy's death a homicide, potentially caused by strangulation (though due to the lapse between her death and finding the body, it was impossible to know for sure).
Why It's Unsolved: If you were alive during this time frame, you know that the principle suspect in the crime (in the media's eyes) for a long time frame was Gary Condit, as he was on the front page of every tabloid newspaper in America for months.  However, most subsequent investigations centered around Ingmar Guandique, who had been in custody twice for attacking women in the same park that Levy was eventually found.  According to Guandique's cellmate, he confessed to the Levy murder, claiming it was an accident, but later tape recordings brought the cellmate's testimony into question, and Guandique was later deported back to his native El Salvador.  As of 2021, no one has officially been charged with the death of Chandra Levy, and Gary Condit, who at 73 is still alive, has never officially acknowledged their affair.

Larry McDonald

The DC Connection: McDonald was a controversial congressman from Georgia, most famous for his hard-right politics (despite being a Democrat).  At one point he was voted the second most conservative member of Congress in the 20th Century, behind only Ron Paul.
The Murder(?): Okay, this one's a weird one so bare with me.  Larry McDonald was invited, along with several other members of Congress, to go to South Korea to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.  He was to be joined by Sens. Jesse Helms (R-NC) & Steve Symms (R-ID), as well as Rep. Carroll Hubbard (D-KY)  Weather separated the men, though, with McDonald being stuck at JFK by himself, eventually settling for Korean Air Lines Flight 007.  Symms & Hubbard both gave up on attending due to the weather, while Helms wasn't able to join McDonald on the plane because of delays.  Helms tried to get McDonald to join him on his own flight when the two men were together in Anchorage on a layover, but McDonald remained sleeping on his plane.  On September 1, 1983, KAL 007 was shot down on its flight from Anchorage to Seoul because it deviated from its flight plane, in the process entering prohibited Soviet airspace.  Everyone on board died.  Initially the Soviets denied shooting down the plane, and then accused the United States of entering their air space as an act of aggression.  Eventually tempers simmered with the United States changing public policy regarding their GPS system and flights from Alaska, but this was generally considering one of the most frightening moments of the Cold War.
Why It's Unsolved: Here's the deal-when you have a plane carrying a controversial member of Congress get shot down by a foreign power at the height of the Cold War, you're going to get conspiracy theories, particularly considering Symms, Hubbard, & Helms all avoided getting on the plane through truly random acts of fate.  Some people in the John Birch Society even go so far as to claim McDonald didn't actually die in the crash.  But there's no actual evidence that this was anything more than the official stance of both the American & Soviet governments...though I list this because it's a deeply unusual death that still has its own chapters around the internet.

Mary Pinchot Meyer

The DC Connection: Meyer was the former wife of CIA official Cord Meyer, but her most noted DC connection was as one of the lovers of President John F. Kennedy.
The Murder: Meyer was murdered on October 12, 1964, near the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal in DC.  Reportedly she had been shot at point-blank by an unidentified African-American man, according to several witnesses who had supposedly seen Meyer while she was on her walk.
Why It's Unsolved: The only person ever charged with Meyer's death was a black man who had been found, wet, on the path near where Meyer was murdered named Ray Crump.  However, there was never any evidence to associate Crump with the murder (and the gun was never found), so with Crump acquitted, the case remains unsolved.  Occum's razor suggests that Meyer, an attractive, wealthy woman, was likely killed in connection with either a sexual assault or robbery that escalated, but because of her associations with the Kennedy family, obviously this invites additional conspiracies, particularly since Meyer purportedly kept a diary during the time of her affair with the president that was (purportedly) later destroyed by CIA Chief James Angleton, an allegation brought forth by Meyer's brother-in-law Ben Bradlee, who would soon after her death become executive editor of the The Washington Post.

Tom Wales

The DC Connection: Wales was the former college roommate of Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, and was a famed gun control advocate when he died.
The Murder: On October 11, 2001, Wales was shot in his home in Seattle.  An assailant had crept into Wales' backyard, and killed him with a handgun through a window looking into Wales' office.  The suspect seen fleeing the scene was supposedly male.
Why It's Unsolved: No one has ever been tried in the death of Tom Wales, believed to be the only federal prosecutor in American history to be assassinated.  It is not entirely clear if Wales' job, particularly as a gun control advocate, may have been one of the reasons behind his being assassinated, or if this is just a coincidence.  In 2018, though, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced an increase in the reward for Wales killer, and the FBI admitted that year that Wales may have been the victim of a contract killer, adding credence to the idea that Wales' death was the result of a conspiracy, potentially related to his role as an attorney.