‘Brand is not what it used to be’: Kennedys brace for 2020 election tests

Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Joseph Kennedy III, first elected to the House in 2012, has been practically groomed since childhood to run for higher office and is taking the leap in the Sept. 1 primary. And the not-quite-there-yet candidacy of Amy Kennedy, wife of former Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, reflects the rise of women candidates in national politics broadly and the Kennedy family specifically.

Amy Kennedy, 44, is considering vying for the Democratic nomination in a south New Jersey congressional district. The traditionally Republican district, which covers Atlantic City, is currently held by Rep. Jeff Van Drew, 66, a longtime Democratic lawmaker who switched parties last week to become a Republican over President Trump’s impeachment.

Up the Atlantic coast in Massachusetts, her cousin-in-law, Rep. Joseph Kennedy, 39, is running for the Democratic Senate nomination against incumbent Ed Markey — a prize tantamount to a general election win in the deep blue state.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, the father of Amy’s husband, commanded the other Massachusetts Senate seat for almost 47 years before his death in 2009. Rep. Kennedy is running on a platform of generational change more than policy differences with Markey, 73, who won the 2013 Senate special election after representing a suburban House Boston district for more than 36 years.

Both are uphill battles.

Several well-known Democrats are competing for the New Jersey seat Amy Kennedy is eyeing, with the primary set for June 2. And the eventual nominee faces a tough race against Van Drew for the district that backed Trump in 2016, assuming the first-term politician can clinch the GOP nomination next year.

Joe Kennedy, meanwhile, in challenging Markey faces a Senate incumbent with backing from much of the Democratic establishment on Capitol Hill and with a long record as a leader on issues such as climate change and union rights.

Of the pair, the possible candidacy of Amy Kennedy is more unconventional. She is a mental health advocate and former teacher, while he is the son of a former Massachusetts congressman, grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, and the product of an elite private high school in Cambridge, Stanford University, and Harvard Law School.

But she is hardly the first Kennedy in-law to aspire to elected office, some more successfully than others.

Sargent Shriver, husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, gained a national profile as a driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps during the administration of his brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy. He also helped engineer a series of Great Society programs under President Lyndon Johnson, including Job Corps and Head Start, and then was U.S. ambassador to France for two years.

Shriver was the Democratic Party’s nominee for vice president in 1972, on a ticket headed by South Dakota Sen. George McGovern. The ticket got wiped out in a 49-state reelection romp by President Richard Nixon. Shriver failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, marking his last political campaign and a return to private life.

Shriver’s son-in-law, former bodybuilder, actor, and businessman Arnold Schwarzenegger, is another Kennedy family in-law to enter the political fray. Then the husband of television anchor Maria Shriver, and a Republican, Schwarzenegger won California’s governorship in the 2003 recall election that booted Democratic Gov. Gray Davis from the governor’s mansion. Maria Shriver and Schwarzenegger divorced in 2011 after Schwarzenegger left office and his affair and child with a family housekeeper were revealed.

Another one-time Kennedy in-law, Andrew Cuomo, married Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, in 1990. The couple divorced in 2005 before Cuomo followed in his own father’s political footsteps, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, to become New York governor in 2011.

If elected to the House in 2020, Amy Kennedy would be the first female Kennedy in-law to be elevated to public office, on the heels of a record number of women elected to the House and Senate in 2018. She would also be only the second female House member whose husband served in the chamber to do so while he was still alive. In 2014, Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell, 66, won the House seat held for nearly 60 years by her husband, Rep. John Dingell, who died last February.

Amy Kennedy could also be the first woman House lawmaker to represent a different state than her husband. Patrick Kennedy, 52, was a Rhode Island representative from 1995 to 2011. He quit Congress after his father’s death and a series of public drug- and alcohol-related episodes.

Patrick Kennedy soon announced his engagement to the then-Amy Savell, an eighth-grade history teacher. The couple has four children, plus one from her previous marriage.

Two Kennedy candidacies in 2020 could bring wins for both, said Brookings Institution’s Darrell West, author of the 2000 book, Patrick Kennedy: The Rise to Power.

2020 “could be the year of the Kennedys. It could be the time when the family makes a comeback after a number of years where their numbers dwindled, and their political philosophy seemed out-of-touch with the country as a whole,” West told the Washington Examiner. “But the Democratic Party has moved to the Left, and so if it provides another opportunity for the family to contribute to public service.”

The pair would represent a throwback of sorts to the days when multiple Kennedys enjoyed power at the same time. There was the father-and-son Senate-House team of Ted and Patrick Kennedy for more than 14 years. And, most prominently, John F. Kennedy’s younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was attorney general during his administration and for nine months into Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.

Robert F. Kennedy won a New York Senate seat in 1964 and was challenging Johnson for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination when he was assassinated on the campaign trail in Los Angeles — meeting the same cruel fate as his presidential older brother almost five years before.

But Robert F. Kennedy’s kin were also drawn to politics. His daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, was Maryland lieutenant governor from 1995 to 2003. One of her brothers, Joseph Kennedy II, was a congressman from Massachusetts from 1987 to 1999. And his son and namesake succeeded him on Capitol Hill 14 years later, taking the seat vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Barney Frank.

For her part, Amy Kennedy is talking up mental health and drug addiction treatment as part of a broader liberal agenda, should she make her bid official.

“Our nation is in crisis. Our political system is in crisis. Our environment is in crisis. We have serious unaddressed needs in our schools and in our mental health and addiction system. Our economy, though strong, is not meeting the needs of the underserved and middle class. We need real leadership to overcome these challenges,” she wrote on Twitter in the days after Van Drew’s party switch.

Her looming campaign announcement “shows like the rest of the country, the Kennedys are changing with the nature of the times” with more women running for office, West said.

Although Amy Kennedy’s a first-time candidate, West suggested her experiences “around the margins of public life just having been a member of the Kennedy family” could be a boon for a bid.

“She’s been working for a nonprofit organization focusing on education and mental health issues, so those should help her in the sense that she’s knowledgeable about those types of topics,” West said. “And the Kennedys still have a big fundraising network. They know how to raise money, so that certainly will be a big plus for her.”

But historian and author David Pietrusza was not as convinced.

“The Kennedy brand is not what it used to be. It’s not exactly Kmart, but the current supply of Kennedy hardly fall into the JFK-RFK mold. Both brothers were extraordinary politicians, JFK in particular. Beyond that, those voters who recall them diminish in number every day — and many are now Republicans,” Pietrusza told the Washington Examiner.

“Jeff Van Drew and Ed Markey have been running in their respective constituencies for a very long time now, shaking many a hand and solving many a voter’s problems. That should never be underestimated by any challenger,” said Pietrusza, whose books include 1960 — LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies.

Moreover, Pietrusza said, “Amy Kennedy would have to navigate her way through a Democratic primary to get at Van Drew. That should not be taken for granted either.”

Two Democrats have already stepped up for a shot at challenging Van Drew.

Pietrusza described both Kennedy races as “even money at best” because “we no longer dwell in Camelot,” adding the Democratic field was now “more crowded and more diverse.”

“The charms of being of Irish Catholic are no longer nearly so great. At some point, dynasties fade and then disappear — the Adamses, the Lodges, the Longs, even the various branches of the Roosevelts,” he said.