Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
Another day, another manipulation of democracy by the self-proclaimed defenders of democracy.
The Democrat-led North Carolina State Board of Elections on Thursday narrowly voted to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the November ballot even though the independent candidate dropped out of the race a week ago, endorsed Trump, and has asked to have his name removed from the list of candidates.
It’s more “cartel” politics from Big Democracy (aka the Democratic National Committee), says the former Democrat who managed RFK Jr.’s campaign.
“I can’t speak for the campaign, but on the one hand the DNC is trying to stop Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s access on the ballot and on the other hand they’re trying to keep him on the ballot,” Dennis Kucinich, a former Democrat congressman from Ohio who left Kennedy’s campaign in October, told me in a phone interview this morning. “What this means is that the DNC is functioning as a cartel with interest groups that support it, and they don’t want any competition.”
As a result, said cartel, Kucinich asserts, is silencing the voices of what he sees as the working people base of the party, rigging the system and trampling all over democracy. Although it’s difficult these days to see trees through the forest of freedom-killing leftists who talk about “saving democracy” from Donald Trump while eviscerating it in pursuit of absolute power.
Shifting Tactics
North Carolina became the latest state to balk at the Kennedy family scion’s request to take his name off of the presidential ballot.
As The Center Square reported, the board’s decision followed a last-minute, heated meeting called to consider removing the We the People party, nominators of Kennedy, from the list of presidential parties on the North Carolina ballot.
The final vote on party lines was 3-2, with Chairman Alan Hirsch voting with two other Democrats to keep RFK Jr. on the general election ballot and the two Republican board members voting against.
It’s a political calculation, pure and simple. Polls, including the Kennedy campaign’s internal tracking, show his presence on the ballot in swing states would draw more votes from the GOP’s presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, than the DNC nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“Democrats on the board cited the ‘impracticality’ of reprinting ballots as a key factor in their decision; mail-in ballots are supposed to be sent out in the state starting Sept. 6 and many counties have begun printing,” The Center Square reported.
But the same Democrat-led board denied We the People ballot access in early July when polling suggested RFK Jr. might pull votes from the forgotten candidate, President Joe Biden. The PINO — President in Name Only — was forced out of his bid for a second term by the DNC and soft coup allies and replaced by Harris at the top of the ticket. The election board’s decision was reversed a couple of weeks later, giving We the People ballot status in North Carolina.
Democrat state elections regulators have pushed hard in recent days to keep Kennedy on other swing state ballots, including in Michigan and Wisconsin.
‘Radically Rigged’
Kucinich remembers a time not so long ago when the democracy champion DNC constructed a set of rules for the 2024 presidential primary campaign that made it impossible to challenge Biden, who was even then incredibly unpopular in his own party.
“They constructed dozens of rules which created circumstances that made ballot access onerous, that stacked the deck in terms of actual delegate counts, that ran up the costs of participating for challengers and radically rigged the primary election in favor of President Biden,” said Kucinich, an independent who’s making another run at congress, this time in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District.
Kennedy, the son of slain New York U.S. Sen. Bobby Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, also assassinated, is lividly hated by the Democrat Party machine. Though a leftist on many fronts, RFK Jr. earned the left’s ire by challenging the despotic government lockdowns and Covid vaccines during the pandemic. He’s also spoken out against Biden administration collusion with Big Tech to silence opposition voices like his — and Trump’s.
But his alliance with the Democrat Party’s Public Enemy No. 1 was too much for Trump haters. So they are doing everything in their power to make RFK Jr. pay — including keeping his name on the ballot in an attempt to peel voters from Trump.
“Think about this in retrospect. Kennedy starts out in pursuit of the Democratic Party nomination as a Kennedy Democrat, which means a lot to a lot of Americans. A force for the common man,” the longtime politico said. “When Kennedy ran as a Democrat, the DNC wasn’t only unwelcoming, they shunned him. One of the biggest names in Democratic politics history was shunned instead of being welcomed and they had already stacked the deck.”
Playing Spoiler
Dems celebrated their latest assault on democracy. The leftist New Republic headline sneered, “RFK Jr’s Genius Plan to Help Trump in Swing States Is in Shambles.”
Interestingly, The Intercept reported that a “Democratic Party-aligned political advertising boutique” is behind two new political ads: one promoting RFK Jr’s now-abandoned presidential run and the other describing him as “the most dangerous man in American politics.”
“Why would Three Point Media, which pitches itself as helping ‘rack up wins for Democratic officeholders and progressive causes all over the country,’” including Michigan’s far left Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Colorado’s Jared Polis, be producing ads to help and hurt Kennedy, the Intercept asks in a piece published Friday.
“[T]he videos — which were shared with The Intercept — offer a rare window into how major-party operatives game out different ways to incorporate potential spoiler candidates like Kennedy into their messaging strategy,” the story asserts.
Republicans do it, too, but they have at least tried to keep leftist spoilers who want to be on the ballot on the ballot.
“The Democratic Party has been taken over by an elite group that is absolutely counter to the broader interests of Democrats,” Kucinich said.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.