What Hillary Clinton Can Learn From Robert F. Kennedy

March 01, 2022 Post a Comment

Can HRC Learn From RFK?

An author of a new book, along with some old Kennedy friends, were here this week to remember the concluding truly accurate candidate. Hillary, are yous listening?

Jul. 28, 2016

This calendar week, Larry Tye, the author of a new biography of Bobby Kennedy, gave a series of free talks and book signings across the metropolis. I caught up with him Monday at the Spousal relationship League later on reading his op-ed in the Inquirer, headlined "Just as RFK Evolved, So Must Clinton."

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"I urge Hillary to take a lesson from Bobby," writes Tye, formerly an award-winning reporter for The Boston Globe. "By the cease of his '68 crusade for the White House, RFK had reconciled his warring halves and yielded to his better instincts in a mode that could be a better model for Clinton than any high-priced adviser. He was changing in deeper and more authentic ways than politicians generally did, which laid bare his inconsistencies and regrets. At that place was less moralism and more morality … It's not also late for Hillary to do the same."

Also in attendance at the Matrimony League was veteran journalist Jeff Greenfield, a speechwriter on RFK's inspiring and sick-fated 1968 presidential campaign, and former U.S. Senator Fred Harris, an onetime Kennedy friend. ("When visiting the Kennedys at Hyannisport, Mary McGrory said the only mode to go forth was to only not have part in all that able-bodied activity," he recalled. "She said, 'Go read a book.'")

The Bobby Kennedy of 1968 was likely our final three-dimensional presidential candidate, the antithesis of the poll-driven, focus-grouped vote seeker. Equally Tye documents in his compelling narrative, Kennedy was a leader who was always in a state of condign; he'd been, as attorney general, bullying and bellicose. Yet he'd grown into a vulnerable, introspective leader. "The quote he used a lot from the aboriginal Greeks, 'The gods call men to a heavy reckoning for overweening pride,'" Greenfield said. "I think he was thinking near Vietnam, I think he was thinking about Cuba, I think he was thinking near the bullying function."

In role, it was that we saw Kennedy abound on the public stage, from ruthless political street brawler to sage. But it'south also that he had real guts. Tye makes the case that nosotros live in divided times, just as Kennedy did, yet he refused to look at voting blocs as mere interest groups and only tell them what they wanted to hear.

We want our political leaders to non just excel at the art of the political deal, but likewise to enrich united states of america with their wisdom. That'south why the Aaron Sorkin show West Wing was and then successful; didn't we all secretly desire Jed Bartlett to be our actual president at a fourth dimension when our real presidents were fooling around with interns and waging wars nether false pretenses?

By 1968, Kennedy had become that type of transcendent figure, capable of the most emotionally intelligent ad-lib speechmaking in modernistic history.

Tye brings to life the terrible nighttime that Martin Luther Rex, Jr. was assassinated, when Kennedy, defying the orders of local government, insisted on breaking the news to an Indianapolis oversupply of inner city black people. Over 100 cities nationwide erupted in riots that nighttime, but conventional wisdom holds that Kennedy'southward words saved Indianapolis from bloodshed and looting.

Watch this speech communication and attempt to imagine Hillary Clinton or—I can't fifty-fifty write this without laughing—Donald Trump striking these "nosotros're all in this together" chords:

What fabricated Kennedy so authentic? In function, information technology was that we saw him grow on the public phase, from ruthless political street brawler to sage. But information technology's also that he had existent guts.

Tye makes the instance that nosotros live in divided times, simply as Kennedy did, yet he refused to wait at voting blocs as mere interest groups and but tell them what they wanted to hear.

"He was the opposite of a demagogue," Tye says, noting that both Greenfield and Harris told virtually the same story, of candidate Kennedy in 1968 telling college kids—part of his base—that he opposed their college exemptions from military service.

"He practiced the reverse of pandering," Tye says. "He'd tell black people they had some responsibleness for remaking the ghetto. He'd tell white blue collar unionists they had to take some responsibility for racial justice." And yet he appealed to inner city blacks—Tye reports that signs in urban ghettos read "Bobby Kennedy is white, but he all right"—as well as what would come to be called Reagan Democrats.

Can Hillary Clinton make an RFK-similar plow? Can she cop to and own her mistakes—from individual server to Benghazi—and can she wear her heart on her pantsuit? "I think and then," Tye says. "I'chiliad an optimist. I think she wants to exercise the correct thing."

Tye says there's a real lesson in the power of Kennedy's appeal: "He'due south an inspiration today for politicians who are told by consultants they have to be authentic, simply accept no clue how to practice information technology."

He was also a thinker with a revolutionary spirit. In 1966, this is how Kennedy began what has get his legendary Affidavit Day speech in S Africa: "I came here because of my deep interest and affection for a state settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over past the British, and at last contained; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this twenty-four hour period; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resource through the energetic awarding of modern technology; a land which in one case imported slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. I refer, of grade, to the Us."

Can you lot imagine an American political leader—on foreign soil, no less—speaking and then frankly today well-nigh his homeland's history of failing to live up to its ideals? Merely his frank talk that day, similar his refusal to pander to those disparate domestic constituencies, gave him a credibility that chest-pumping sloganeering about American exceptionalism would only undermine.

That South Africa speech communication came to be known as the "Ripple of Hope" spoken language; listen to this excerpt, and come across if y'all tin imagine anyone at either political convention (with the possible exception of the astonishing Michelle Obama) striving for such high-mindedness:

We hear a lot about authenticity in politics present, but Tye says we "go faux authentic candidates like Donald Trump—whose un-PC statements pass for authenticity. Bobby was authentic because he knew the problems while he told the truth. He'd give the same spoken language on both sides of the tracks and would tell anybody that he was incorrect on Vietnam earlier he was right on it."

Can Hillary Clinton make an RFK-like turn? Can she cop to and ain her mistakes—from individual server to Benghazi—and can she vesture her heart on her pantsuit? "I think so," Tye says. "I'grand an optimist. I think she wants to practice the right thing."

No dubiousness that Hillary's eye seems to exist in the correct identify. But there'due south a reason that, in the latest CNN poll, a stunning 68 percent discover her untrustworthy. The Hillary of the 2022 campaign, the one that was for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal before she was against it, seems as finger to the current of air and prone to score-settling every bit ever. Call back, the individual server was likely a way to play keep-away from the press—evoking Richard Nixon more Bobby Kennedy.

"He practiced the opposite of pandering," Tye says. "He'd tell black people they had some responsibility for remaking the ghetto. He'd tell white blue collar unionists they had to take some responsibility for racial justice." And yet he appealed to inner urban center blacks—Tye reports that signs in urban ghettos read "Bobby Kennedy is white, but he all right"—besides every bit what would come to be called Reagan Democrats.

Even in that, Tye suggests in that location may exist a lesson, if simply Hillary were paying attending. "Bobby was despised by the printing in the early '60s," Tye says. "By the '68 campaign, reporters were falling in love with him. Richard Harwood of the Washington Post had to go to his boss, Ben Bradlee, and tell him he couldn't embrace the campaign. 'I like him also much,' he said."

At the convention this week, nosotros heard speaker afterwards speaker evidence that, abroad from the media glare, Hillary Clinton is charming, empathetic, thoughtful and charismatic. Some said that most a growling attorney general, as well, in the early '60s.

As Tye documents in a work all politicians should read, the death of his blood brother caused Bobby Kennedy to grow introspective earlier our optics, and fabricated prophets out of those who had maintained that the younger Kennedy brother was the truly smashing leader of his iconic family.

Maybe Hillary's story will follow a similar arc. But it would involve risk-taking we haven't still seen from her.

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