RFK Jr. says he's running to restore 'aspirational' feeling that sprang from 9/11
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Sep. 11—WALPOLE — Environmental activist, lawyer and political dynasty family member Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he is running for president to "restore the aspirational" feelings all Americans shared following the terrorist attacks on New York City, Washington and in a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11, 2001.
The Democratic hopeful decided to hold his signature remembrance marking the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 not at those tragic sites of jetliner crashes but inside a quiet, organic greenhouse of David Bickford and Kirsten Anderson who operate the Abenaki Springs Farm on five pristine acres here.
"It was farms like this where America started, it was where our ideals' were rooted in these kind of soils and this kind of landscape," Kennedy said during an interview.
Farmers from New England who left their plowshares and grabbed a musket went on to win the American Revolution and create a country founded on freedom and individual liberty, Kennedy said.
"They were tough people, they were growing good food and they beat the biggest empire in the world at that time," Kennedy said.
Later Monday night, Kennedy hosted a town hall forum on the property.
On Wednesday, Kennedy will become the first Democrat to agree to speak at the No BS BBQ events sponsored by former Republican U.S. Sen. Scott and Gail Huff Brown in Rye.
"Scott Brown invited me and I have done this for my whole career. I talked to people on all sides, I always talk to people who don't agree with me," Kennedy told reporters.
"I will talk to anybody. The only limit I have is what my wife will tolerate. She will not let me go on (former Trump adviser) Steve Bannon (who holds a syndicated talk show), but I want to talk to his audience."
Some polls have given Kennedy even more favorable numbers among independents and Republicans than hard-core Democrats.
"I think we ought to be talking to each other; what's wrong with that?" Kennedy said with 20 supporters looking on inside while a driving rainstorm went on outside.
"We are more polarized than at any time since the Civil War and it is incredibly troubling."
Some of Kennedy's supporters have raised conspiracy theories about 9/11.
Kyle Kemper, a volunteer who lives in Florida and joined Kennedy in Walpole, said he thinks the terrorist attacks were at least in part an "inside job," and one the U.S. government wanted to occur.
Kennedy was having none of that Monday, sadly recounting that on that day he lost a very close friend who died in the Twin Towers that also had housed his own business offices.
A partner of Kennedy's firm who was there on that day has suffered from persistent illness ever since, Kennedy said.
"People from across America, every race, creed and culture, came to Ground Zero" to help try and locate and identify the dead, Kennedy recalled.
"We all understood we were America, all for one country."
We needed to learn the 'lessons' coming out of 9/11The country has needed to learn from "lessons" growing out of that attack in which the nation craved for "vengeance, attacking a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11," Kennedy continued.
In February 2016, Kennedy wrote in Politico, "What we call the war on terror is really just another oil war."
"The only winners have been the military contractors and oil companies that have pocketed historic profits, the intelligence agencies that have grown exponentially in power and influence to the detriment of our freedoms and the jihadists who invariably used our interventions as their most effective recruiting tool," Kennedy wrote.
President Joe Biden attended a military memorial service in Anchorage, Alaska Monday on his way back from a G-20 summit and a visit to Vietnam.
The Democratic National Committee is trying to manipulate the 2024 political calendar to guarantee only Biden can win the nomination, Kennedy said.
"I think it is clear the DNC wants to disenfranchise the voters of all states that did not support President Biden the last time," Kennedy said.
"They have disenfranchised New Hampshire effectively already and are trying to do the same to Iowa."
New Hampshire political leaders have rejected demands from the DNC to keep an early date for its primary.
A new proposed rule would prevent any candidate such as himself campaigning in New Hampshire or any rogue state from getting any support in Georgia, which will select 124 delegates, Kennedy said.
"It will make it almost impossible if they adopt that rule for anybody but President Biden to win the nomination," Kennedy said.
"Even with the rules they have already agreed on, I would need to get 60 to 70 percent of the vote in virtually every state to win the nomination and now they are trying to make it even harder."
Kennedy said the moves make him determined to spend even more time campaigning here.
"It is almost like in the old Soviet Union where the party picked the candidate and anyone who wanted democracy and opposed the regime became an enemy of the state," Kennedy said.
Most Americans are paying little attention to this controversy, he said.
"We ought to be modeling democracy, be the template for democracy. It is ironic and I think it is chilling," Kennedy summed up.
"It would be very troubling for Americans if they knew the extent of this."
