The Charleston Mercury reports:

As election time draws ever nearer, nearly all major polling outlets have revealed a similar trend in voter data: The majority of Americans would rather not have a rematch of the 2020 debacle if there is a viable alternative — an almost unprecedented sentiment among presidential voters. This trend was observed by HarrisX, Gallup and the Pew Research Institute. The polls varied, but the message was clear: Voters today are more open than ever before to a third-party candidate — and Mr. Kennedy is polling close to 20 percent.

“My experience with running within the Democratic Party made it clear to me that the donor base of the Democratic Party is hostile to any progressive candidate who would challenge this corrupt merger between state and corporate power. So, you know, the same thing that happened to me, with the same things that happened to Tulsi Gabbard, that happened to Bernie Sanders and Jim Webb and other candidates who were talking about the corporate domination of America’s political system."

"And … there’s a longer-term issue, which is the way that system stays in place, roads and amplifying the polarization so that Republicans are always fighting Democrats. It’s black against white. It’s native against migrant … It’s like the jangling keys strategy:  Everybody is looking at the jangling keys while the bank is being robbed … if a king and queen look out over the balustrades in their castle and they see their subjects fighting, they go back to the banquet and pop champagne corks, because they know nobody’s coming over the wall. [My] hope during my campaign is to quiet these disputes by focusing on the values that we all have in common, which are much larger and much more important than these little issues, these cultural issues that are used to keep us at each other’s throats.”

That’s a key part of his message and one element that will likely stick with voters — it neither assigns nor absolves any blame, but focuses on a constructive way forward together.

Read the full interview here.

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