What would Bobby do?

Robert F. Kennedy's message still rings true 50 years after his death. Here's why.

Robert Kennedy.
(Image credit: AP Photo/John Lent)

Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of liberal icon Robert F. Kennedy, the senator, attorney general, and brother to a murdered president. Decades later, as Democrats seek to forge a winning coalition after their devastating loss in the 2016 election, they should put away the polls and look to the message RFK espoused just before he was killed.

If you had to sum up Kennedy's campaign for president in 1968 in a single word, it would be reconciliation. "At a time when working-class whites and black voters were at each other's throats, Kennedy managed to forge a remarkable coalition by communicating to both groups that he cared about their futures," Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, says in a report on his ill-fated campaign. "Running as a candidate deeply committed to advancing civil rights, Kennedy nevertheless was able to attract many working-class white voters, some of whom had voted for segregationist George Wallace in a previous election."

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Michael Cooper

Michael Cooper is a journalist and attorney in North Carolina with contributions to National Affairs, The New Republic, and U.S. News & World Report..