The dead bear is another strange twist in RFK Jr.’s faltering campaign.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent campaign for the White House was buoyed by chaos in the Democratic Party and discontent with two familiar candidates. But bizarre headlines, a new opponent and limited funds put him in trouble.

The 70-year-old’s recent confession to dumping a dead bear in Central Park is just the latest strange twist in a campaign that was already slipping in the polls.

Mr Kennedy appears determined to test the proposition that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

To preempt a lengthy profile published Monday in The New Yorker magazine, he released a video in which he discusses an accident involving a teddy bear a decade ago — and the improbable series of events that followed.

In the video, Mr. Kennedy chats with actress and comedian Roseanne Barr over a half-eaten takeout meal of prime rib. He describes seeing a nearby car hit and kill a bear cub during a day trip hunting with a falcon.

He explained that he had initially intended to take the dead animal home and skin it. After a change of schedule, he decided to dispose of the carcass in New York’s Central Park, using an old bicycle, to make it look like a bicycle accident.

When someone discovered the bear and the bicycle the next day, the story made headlines in New York tabloids and television news programs.

Needless to say, the whole episode – which reads like a youthful prank gone wrong, but took place when the candidate was 60 years old – is strange.

The falconry outing. The photo, published in the New Yorker, of RFK Jr. posing with the dead bear. The planned butchering and feeding. The animal’s final resting place in New York’s famous urban park. And even the video itself, showing Ms. Barr—who has been embroiled in numerous controversies herself—holding a cup of tea and nodding as Mr. Kennedy tells his story.

His explanation that the decision to pick up the dead bear was his “redneck side” coming out of the box doesn’t sit well with the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, a member of an American political dynasty.

Yet this is all routine for Mr. Kennedy, whose major campaign issues have ranged from the scandalous to the downright bizarre.

In May, the New York Times published a story revealing that he told lawyers involved in his 2012 divorce proceedings that he suffered from a memory problem linked to a dead brain parasite.

In mid-July, Mr. Kennedy sent a text message of apology to a former family nanny after Vanity Fair magazine published an article in which she accused him of unwanted sexual advances.

“I have no memory of this incident, but I sincerely apologize for anything I did that made you feel uncomfortable,” he wrote.

In comments to the media, he said the Vanity Fair article contained a lot of “rubbish,” but conceded that he had a “very, very turbulent youth” and was “not a church kid.”

There was a point this year when Mr. Kennedy — who launched his independent presidential campaign after initially seeking the Democratic nomination — was averaging about 15 percent in presidential preference polls. He narrowly missed qualifying for the first presidential debate in late June.

Mr. Kennedy appeared to capitalize on voter discontent with Donald Trump and Joe Biden. His speech mixed anti-establishment, anti-business rhetoric with liberal social positions and a heavy dose of environmentalism and controversial vaccine skepticism.

With Mr Biden’s disappointing performance in this first debate, the door may have opened for Mr Kennedy to force his way into the American political debate.

Instead, he has virtually disappeared from the presidential campaign trial.

He devoted little time to advertising and organizing awareness campaigns. His headlines were about brain problems, allegations of sexual harassment and the adventures of teddy bears.

Meanwhile, his support in the polls has fallen to single digits.

Mr Kennedy’s decline was inevitable, even without the distracting headlines, said Clifford Young, president of public affairs at Ipsos.

“It was a protest option,” he said. “There was a lot of indifference between the two candidates. People didn’t like either choice and it was an expression of indifference or disdain.”

Today, he said, Democrats and Republicans have consolidated their political support.

Mr. Kennedy was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the Republican National Convention in late July, where he had a telephone conversation with the former president.

According to media reports, Mr Kennedy offered to support the former president in exchange for a role in his next administration – an offer Trump declined.

At this point, it seems unlikely that Mr. Kennedy will generate much interest in the upcoming November election. Even a modest showing could swing the presidential race, however, if that support shows up in one of the key states where the independent candidate is running.

In 2016, Green Party candidate Jill Stein won more votes than Trump and Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, the three key states in that race. If even a fraction of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader’s support in Florida had gone to Democrats, Al Gore would have won the White House in 2000.

Mr. Young, however, said Mr. Kennedy’s appeal was different from those two notable Green Party candidates. He appealed primarily to the disaffected center of American politics — voters who were reluctant to lean slightly to the right.

Green Party candidates, on the other hand, have hurt Democrats by relying almost exclusively on the left.

Mr. Kennedy could still play spoilsport, but the race would have to be extremely close. And in the meantime, his chances of shaping the direction of his campaign on a broader scale seem to have been swallowed up by an avalanche of oddities.