Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has surrounded himself with an eclectic mix of people in his inner circle as he seeks the White House from an unlikely third-party position.
The people who make up his main advisers are gurus of “new age” health, activists who are anti-vaccine like he is, many social media influencers, veterans of other fringe presidential campaigns, evangelists in the cryptocurrency industry and very militant environmentalists.
But, one unexpected member of his team is Jay Carson. The 47-year-old Hollywood screenwriter has a past that includes many stops as an insider for the Democratic Party.
He served as Hillary Clinton’s press secretary during her presidential campaign in 2008 against Barack Obama. He also worked for Hillary’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, as well as prominent Democratic politicians such as Michael Bloomberg, Howard Dean, Tom Daschle and Chuck Schumer.
He says that his political godmother is Anita Dunn, who currently serves as President Joe Biden’s senior adviser. Carson calls her “one of my favorite people in the world.”
More than 10 years ago, though, Carson left politics to pursue a career in show business. He was a producer on the very popular Netflix political series “House of Cards” and even created the wildly popular series “The Morning Show.”
In that time, he got a divorce from his life and got sober, which is where he met RFK Jr. — at one of his first 12-step meetings.
Carson has since settled into a new lift with a new wife in California, and he had no plans to return to politics.
But, in the last year, he’s started to become a steadying force behind RFK Jr. according to a recent report in The New York Times.
Carson serves as an informal adviser to Kennedy, offering him general encouragement as well as guidance on things such as field operations, communications and staffing.
He even produced and appeared in an advertisement about Kennedy, which was paid for by one of RFK Jr.’s super PACs. He was also involved in helping to select a running mate for Kennedy.
When Kennedy drew a lot of criticism for releasing a statement that made it look like he was expressing support for Capitol rioters, he turned to Carson, who told him:
“If it’s not what you believe, just say you messed up.”
And that’s what Kennedy did on live television.
In an interview, Kennedy said of Carson:
“He has his finger on the public pulse. He is very gifted about predicting how the public and the press will react to certain things.”
It’s not just that Carson and Kennedy are close personal friends, which they are. It’s also that Carson turned away from the Democratic Party, which is exactly what Kennedy did as well.
The disenchantment that both have with mainstream politics could go a long way in defining how the November election progresses, according to The Times report.
As Carson said in an interview in the spring:
“My sense is that there’s never been a greater dissatisfaction in our electoral process and our government and our elected officials and their choices for president than there are right now.”