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Vaniver comments on Stanislav Petrov Day - Less Wrong
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The Kennedy political dynasty disappeared, though, which is something to gladden the hearts of Republicans.
I don't see evidence that Sirhan Sirhan was Republican, and Oswald was definitely a communist. It's not clear to me how that supports your point.
(As well, you may have heard of this guy, goes by the name of Ted.)
Ted never came anywhere near the presidency and then he sealed the deal with his little car accident; JFK was hoping for two terms, of course, to be followed by RFK, since they were the gifted ones. Killing Ted would be useful from the Republican POV, of course, since Ted did a lot of good work in the Senate, but Robert and John were the threats.
The point is that each had a vastly greater impact on the political process than they ever could have had by non-assassination routes.
That the impact was not in the direction of their goals is immaterial, because all that means is one needs slightly better planning and then one will have both vast impact on politics and do so in the direction of one's goals. The need for tweaks does not refute the basic point about marginal advantage. (I just said this in my other comment.)
I thought we were talking about success, not impact.
OK, so what we're learning here is that, while Sirhan and Oswald didn't achieve their goals (which after all were far fetched and which nobody else has achieved since), the Republican Party would have achieved its goals (which were rather modest and much closer at hand) quite well by assassination. (And of course, that's the basis from which many conspiracy theorists start: qui bono and all that. Even if you don't buy their specific theories, which are usually nonsense, you can agree with them that such conspiracies would have been effective if they were real.)