RFK Jr.'s VP pick shows his presidential bid for what it is: A vanity project all about him

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s improbable bid for the presidency always looked more like a vanity project than a political campaign.

His pick for a running mate Tuesday only confirmed that.

Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur with very deep pockets, serves as a perfect mirror for Kennedy’s conspiratorial take on politics and corporations and medicine and America.

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She used her political coming out party in Oakland, California, to suggest that one of the causes of her own daughter’s autism was vaccines and medicine typically given to children. This is right in line with the controversial and contested views Kennedy has espoused for years.

Kennedy’s kindred spirit also has the cash to keep his campaign going. Shanahan, who was formerly married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, had donated about $4 million to Kennedy and helped pay for more than half of a $7 million commercial for his campaign during the Super Bowl.

As running mates go, they’re made for each other. She shares his odd views and can pay for his platform, feeding him validation and attention.

As politicians, they have no chance to win but every chance to tilt November’s election, likely in Donald Trump’s favor.

Kennedy complains about media coverage and Democrats

Kennedy and his warm-up speakers speechified for nearly two hours Tuesday before any of his supporters actually saw Shanahan. It was standard fare with plenty of complaints about the media not casting Kennedy as a serious contender.

Kennedy leaned hard into his family’s historic political legacy, his lineage as the nephew of a president and son of a man killed while seeking the presidency in 1968.

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist.

The part he left out there: The Kennedy family wants him to just stop with it all, disavowing him after the Super Bowl ad. Why else would they stop by the White House on Saint Patrick’s Day to pose for smiling photographs with President Joe Biden?

No Labels, no candidate: Is No Labels an elaborate grift with no candidate? Their secrecy is telling.

Kennedy was keen to play the victim, complaining Tuesday that the Democratic Party and supportive super PACs are mobilizing to marginalize him, using healthy fundraising to campaign against him and fight his effort to get on the ballot state by state.

In other words, a third-generation scion of a famous political family complained about having to face – gasp! – politics while running for president. He sounded like the captain of a yacht complaining about salt water on his hull.

Don’t call Kennedy a spoiler this election, even if he sort of is a spoiler this election

Kennedy is polling at about 10%, according to an average of polls compiled by The Hill. But he is outraged to be called a spoiler, even though his campaign has been funded by some of Trump’s wealthiest supporters.

“Our campaign is a spoiler. I agree with that,” Kennedy said. “It’s a spoiler for President Biden and for President Trump.”

That just doesn’t match reality. Third-party candidates can impact an election. But the math does not work for them winning it all.

Nicole Shanahan and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. face a tough road ahead

Shanahan sounded like a person who meant well. She has a compelling story, the daughter of a Chinese immigrant mother and and a father of German-Irish descent who suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

She’s a political novice, and a former Biden donor, who left the Democratic Party and sounded more than a little nervous about the road ahead. I don’t envy the experience she’s about to have.

The issue of religion this election: Americans want a religious president. They just don’t see Trump or Biden that way.

The Democratic National Committee hosted a media call moments after Shanahan stopped speaking. U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, knocked Kennedy as a “tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist” and said Shanahan “just doubled down on these anti-vaccine conspiracies and anti-health agenda.”

Austin Davis, a Democrat and Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, said Kennedy is “trying to coast on his family’s legacy” after being “drafted into this race by Donald Trump’s top supporters.”

Shanahan is also upset with Democrats and the media

Shanahan didn’t address her potential as part of a spoiler ticket. And she made only a passing mention of her considerable resources, telling the crowd, “As you probably know, I became very wealthy later on in life.” (She’s 38 years old.)

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She sounded genuinely disillusioned with the Democratic Party, which she said “as an institution, it has lost its way.” But the more she spoke, the more it became clear the way she wanted was a conformity to the views she shares with Kennedy. She wasn’t getting her way. So she took her bank account and jumped ship.

Consider her take on Kennedy just a year ago – she didn’t have one.

“I really didn’t think much of Bobby Kennedy because I didn’t know much about him,” Shanahan said. “All I had was a mainstream media narrative that was effectively telling me horrible, disparaging things.”

But then a friend said she should listen to an interview where Kennedy spoke his mind. And she liked what she heard, so much that she decided views offered about Kennedy that didn’t suit her amounted to “media slander of his character.”

She clearly cares deeply now about his image. What else could a vanity-project candidate ask for in a running mate?

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: RFK Jr.’s VP pick shows his presidential bid for what it is: A vanity project all about him