Kennedy can get his one-on-one race only if one of the two main party candidates drops out. He probably considered Trump to be a likely dropout falling victim to lawfare but that eventuality seems increasingly less likely in view of the events delaying the federal and state cases. Biden, on the other hand, is possibly to be a victim of his own party establishment as his polls reveal his chances to be increasingly dismal. Therefore, Kennedy must assume that his one-on-one, if he is to get the chance, will come against Trump if it comes at all.
So what would Kennedy's strategy against Trump be? Just as the MAGA base is quite unlikely to dessert Trump, so too is it unlikely that Trump haters, conditioned now for nearly a decade by leftist media to despise and fear Trump, are unlikely to desert any reasonably acceptable candidate on the left who opposes Trump. Thus the race, beyond get out the vote drives to respective bases, will boil down to never-Trump Republicans, independents, and suburban women who want everybody to play nice and who recoil from Trump's alleged grotesqueries.
In this field, Kennedy is running on the side of a slightly larger party in a world in which independents are bigger than either party. His task then is to confine Republican voters to Trump's MAGA base. His task is to provide all other Republicans with a reasonable, that is sensible, alternative to Trump's conservative policies. In other words, wherever Kennedy can run to the right of Trump he should do so providing it does not antagonize his own Democrat base, independents and never- Trump Republicans.
The pollsters tell us that the number one issue today is the open border and Kennedy has declared recently on the side of angels calling for closing the border. Thus, he put himself in alignment with about 68% of the voters and provides sensitive and race phobic voters with a reasonable alternative without all that unseemly racism that the left has attached to Trump. Hence, Kennedy is in a position to run to the right of Trump quite safely on this issue.
Similarly, Kennedy is running to the right on the issue of voter ID, calling for the issuance of photo identification. He does not offend the base of the Democrat party, again, he can run to the right and even get to Trump's right without undermining his own party's support because the Democrat party grassroots are themselves not committed to voter fraud, that feature comes from their elites and professionals.
Kennedy has called for cutting the military budget in half, using the saved monies to balance the budget, increase healthcare subsidies keep taxes at current levels and, magically, balance the budget. In this he runs to Trump's right, who will want to increase military spending, and he panders to Trump supporters who want an end to foreign adventures, a position that Kennedy also promotes with the additional argument that foreign adventures will be curtailed because he will have reduced the military budget. Running to Trump's right, he still offers a plausible scenario for fiscal and foreign policy sanity.
There are other issues which should be analyzed but the thrust of his campaign emerges. It is also important to emphasize that Kennedy is artful in appearing to be reasonable and, when pushed, he is quite facile in diverting attention away from the downside of any issue he espouses by averting to his personal or family history. These discourses are well delivered and hold the audience.. He anticipates many of the potential charges against himself and blunts their force by frank admissions of his own drug and alcohol abuse etc. His story of redemption is credible and actually moving, especially to Moonbeam independents.
Kennedy is not to be dismissed, he is a very dangerous candidate who carries more than the aura of his name.
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