In her first move after announcing that she would like to be appointed to the New York Senate seat, Caroline Kennedy has hired "major Democratic fixer Josh Isay."
Isay did the honors for Joe Lieberman during his general election race against Ned Lamont, after Lieberman withdrew from the Democratic party and ran as a member of the "Connecticut for Lieberman" party.
Here’s one of Isay’s ads, where Lieberman tells people about how much he wants to bring the troops home:
Of course, at the time Lieberman was getting hammered in the polls by Lamont, and needed to quickly change his rhetoric or risk a loss in Connecticut where the anti-war sentiment was strong.
The month after he was re-elected to the Senate, Lieberman called for an immediate increase of 15,000-30,000 troops.
Isay’s ads were critical in deceiving voters and paving the way for Lieberman’s reelection. Now that it’s clear where Lieberman really stands, Daily Kos polling indicates Lamont would overwhelmingly defeat Lieberman.
It’s telling that Caroline Kennedy has never wanted to run for office, and never thought to put her case before the public when she decided she wanted this job. Her first move was to pick up the phone and start working the elites, then hire a political fixer whose specialty is deceiving voters:
"She told me she was interested in the position," Mr. Paterson said at a news conference outside Albany on Monday. He added, "She’d like at some point to sit down and tell me what she thinks her qualifications are."
I think many people who aren’t emotionally leaping into the cult of personality would like to know that too, because at this point in time, nobody knows what she stands for.
I guess the public will just have to wait until Isay appropriately "packages" it for our consumption.



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I believe that Caroline Kennedy is beginning to go around to upstate communities today in Rochester.
Thanks for being willing to take on a very powerful dynasty. The whole thing sickens me.
She’d like at some point to sit down and tell me what she thinks her qualifications are.
CK really does live in a different world from the rest of us. Maybe that should have been the first thing out of her mouth. What are her qualifications?
Maybe the only thing worse than the politician is the spinner.
I don’t think one has to be a dfh to be cynical about what campaigning pols will say. Haven’t politicians always had a reputation for glad handing and baby kissing?
I don’t think the kissing is always limited to babies ;)
“I think many people who aren’t emotionally leaping into the cult of personality would like to know that too, because at this point in time, nobody knows what she stands for.”
Since she came out of her life-long undisclosed location to campaign for Obama’s presidential bid, can we not assume what she stands for is Obama’s agenda?
a big fat head start over at the HuffPo Front Page this morning – oy
I know. I almost went back and changed baby to butt.
:)
From N.Y. Times article:
…Marie Owen, 69, a flute player who lives on the Upper West Side, expressed admiration for Ms. Kennedy.
“I somehow can’t see her as being corrupt. It’s not her legacy,” she said. “I kind of like the idea, maybe because I’m old.”
Listen to your elders.
her legacy? what does that mean?
I’m beginning to like the company she keeps. /s
Who did Watertiger hire to run her campaign?
Can you spell opportunist?
Thanks Jane.
digg
Thanks, Jane.
I’m tired of American royalty appointing themselves to run our country. No more Bushes, no more Clintons, and yes, no more Kennedys.
Flute players are getting a bad rep these days.
I hear Dangerstein is at large and calling Obama “The Decider.”
I’m thinking either Siegfried or Roy.
Cheap shot, Jane. Conflating CK with Lieberman is beyond the pale.
First, I’m not sure what Obama stands for. Letting Lieberman keep his chairmanship over Gov’t Affairs and Homeland Security was a gratuitous slap at liberals/progressives. IMHO, Barack and Harry want Joe to continue to be a firewall for them against us.
The complaint on Caroline is that she was AWOL, when liberals/progressives really needed her. Through eight years of Bush anti-Americanism, she was silent. Now that the tide is trending blue, she wants a Senate seat.
I certainly hope she’s the best Senator in a long time, but the early signs, hiring Isay for example, are anything but encouraging.
Didn’t Caroline do that for herself by hiring Isay?
no
is is just me, or is the War on Caroline starting to resemble the War on Christmas?
How is it a cheap shot to share the news that she hired the same guy as Lieberman? She didn’t make that up.
Just you.
Hey Tommyboy, if you’ve got something good to say about CK, about how she got down in the trenches and raised money to fight against the GOP philistines, bring a link. We’d all really love to see it.
Otherwise, pony up that apology to Jane.
i don’t understand your objection. would you explain further? thanks!
“No” what?
Is there someone in particular that you support over CK, or are you just looking to fling poo?
How about someone who has held effing office before?
Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are as my mom used to say.
you mean like Hillary Clinton?
If you think she’s qualified, beyond her name, please by all means let us in on it.
The seat’s open in 2010. She could actually run for office.
What’s her position on Iraq?
What’s her position on selling off our industrial base to China?
What’s her position on credit default swaps?
Is she pro-choice?
Does she support contraception for rape victims? JoLie didn’t.
What’s her view on marriage?
What’s her view on campaign finance reform?
Thanks for making my point.
No, I’m not going to apologize to Jane. Comparing CK to Lieberman (really, comparing anyone to Lieberman) is cheap, end of story.
So CK has used connections to advance her case? For fuck’s sake this is politics, folks; connections are the life blood of politics. To even imply that CK would turn into Lieberman simply by dint of having hired the same guy Lieberman did stinks. This is the same kind of shit the GOP throws at Obama when they play the guilt-by-association game, and we’re better than that.
IMO, she’s at least as qualified as HRC ever was, and she’s going to have to run in a special election in ‘10. She’d be a reliable Dem vote in the Senate, and may even turn out to be one of the more socially progressive Senators. I don’t get the agita this raising.
Jane,
I agree with all you have written on this. Although, I think her life of semi privacy suddenly changing has more to do with perhaps the health of her Uncle and looking at what she can now do to carry on. I came to a point in my life where I reflected on “those aspects” of my family life that were of core import in terms of service and what I wanted “carried on” character-wise in my family. With her mom, dad and brother gone, her Uncle battling cancer, she may be looking at the legacy she wants to leave and her Uncle’s health may have kicked that process into high gear. By no means does this comment rationalize the process which should actually happen in this case.
Just some thoughts… Thanks for the update.
A Lieberman “brand man”? Ugh. I have to believe in what I market…
Hillary is exactly the problem. The fact that she was able to coast into office on her husband’s former position is what gives Caroline the idea that she can do the same on her father’s reputation. And if Caroline pulls it off, the sky’s the limit.
It’s worse than a slippery slope because we’re already sliding down it at an accelerating rate.
Kenosha,
Eli has offered to be my campaign manager. He thought you should know. ;-)
Well, if she is, I don’t think it’s today. From today’s Rochester Dem and Chronicle:
http://www.democratandchronicl…../812160329
“Kennedy, an aide said, has called leaders in recent days to get their thoughts about her candidacy and the problems facing the state, including reaching out to Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. She has also spoken to Time Warner Chairman Dick Parsons, The Rev. Al Sharpton and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein….Slaughter endorsed Kennedy for the seat Monday evening, saying she pledged to help Kennedy, who lives in Manhattan, better understand upstate New York.
“She has spent her whole life fighting for what she believes in — she is a champion of public education, a lawyer, and an accomplished author,” Slaughter said.”
Let’s start with an easy one. What’s her position on torture?
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/16/zaidi-torture/
Jane, thanks for doing this. From the HuffPost today:
“Senator Clinton completely respects the privacy of his process so will not be commenting on it or any individual candidate, nor does any third party speak on her behalf.”
I’m with you, Jane. And I do not respect the privacy of the process!
Evidence?
I happen to think that coming in a fresh face is a plus for CK. Anyone who gets this office is getting it handed to them. It will be up them to earn in 2010. I don’t necessarily want someone who has ALREADY had to shop themselves around and gone hat in hand to Wall Street donors and others (even teacher’s unions) for money to run for office. I am usually not one for dynasties either, but if Guliani runs for it we need someone with real name recognition to stand a chance.
New York likes celebrity politicians. If there’s a slippery slope, we’ve already slid.
For fuck’s sake this is politics, folks; connections are the life blood of politics.
Yes, we know. No one here thinks it’s a game.
Please don’t act like you didn’t know you were asking for trouble with your comment.
Having fun?
Iraqi ambassador to U.S. on cspan2 talking about Zaidi right now, live. He sez Zaidi is lucky that it wasn’t Saddam Hussein at the podium.
Geez, that’s the sum total of what the U.S. did in Iraq, get rid of SH. Talk about low hanging fruit.
Audience member sez: What about occupation and torture that Bush did. She is ignored.
While I think CK could very well one of the more Liberal and effective Senators, this hire is a big misstep. More about Josh Isay:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…..5?detail=f
Blech. He also did the infamous “Sunset” ad for Traitor Joe.
No, I’m not having fun. If Jane has a problem with CK on the merits, fine. But to throw this kind of baseless bullshit around is beneath us.
i don’t see where anyone made that implication. the objection was to her first hire, the explanation of that objection was a trip down memory lane.
low bar. not a fan of either clinton.
personally, i don’t care if she’s never held public office before (after all i supported lamont). what i want to know is why is she running? what kind of senator does she want to be? does she have the necessary skills to help the country at this time? being a kennedy isn’t a qualification.
I got dibs on the oppo slot ! :D
Hillary Clinton spent much of 1998 campaigning her heart out for Schumer, crowds were so thrilled, that is why she was invited to run in 2000. It wasn’t just being first lady, it was being a first lady who would campaign her heart out under very adverse circumstances. It was grace under fire.
Where was Caroline? Where was she in 1998? 2000? 2004? Has she every campaigned for any Dem? Has she even written a check? This whole idea that volunteering and campaigning is for the little people makes me just plain sick.
Everyone likes celebrity politics. Schwarzzeneger, Reagan, anyone? It’s a weakness of voting. I see no need to accelerate it in such a transparent way.
And anyone who thinks JFK’s daughter won’t get elected into the long distance future, should think again. She’s got the name recognition and the pity factor. And the R party in NYS seems in at least as much disarray as the Rs nationally, so once Caroline gets the crown, nothing will be able to take it away from her.
While there are similarities here, your comparing Hillary Clinton to Caroline Kennedy is flawed. Hillary didn’t “coast” into her Senate seat — she fought like hell to win an ELECTION for that seat. It was not a given that she would become a senator, and no one appointed her.
Caroline Kennedy may have her reasons for leading a somewhat low-profile private existence for all these years. And while I don’t agree that she’s a complete mystery in terms of her positions on issues, she’s far, far from any sort of visible activism on progressive/liberal issues. How do we know anything about how she would vote? Just because she’s a Kennedy? Exactly the problem here.
What did you put in your cheerios this morning?
Several people have pointed out just Jane said and what she did not.
You are not making any sense. You might have some points to make, but when you surround them with crazy, you’re not going to reach people.
If you’re not having fun and not communicating effectively, I have to wonder what is your agenda.
I think you have hit on something very important here. The generational shift occurs in families as well as nations. Sometimes it’s the unexpected members who come forward.
You make a good point that Hillary worked (and Caroline didn’t). But I’ll still argue that Hillary coasted because she could have won the election even if she had done very little. Counterfactual, I know, so YMMV.
I think Rush will be reading here from his snarky + material.
you’re right. No one – including Rudy.
Hold on, Hamsher started this nonsense with her Harriett Christian-like attacks on Kennedy. (Cult of Personality, Doing her Nails) No one is saying she’s the best choice, but Hamsher’s snide attacks on Kennedy and those who wouldn’t mind giving the woman a chance go beyond questioning the CK’s qualifications. Let Jane tell us who she thinks is best qualified and why. Equating Kennedy to Lieberman is pathetic. Get your head out of Jane’s ass and realize if anyone is having fun with the tenor of this thread it’s Jane.
Her father and uncle were murdered. She herself survived a car bombing attempt. Perhaps with a couple of little kids through those years, maybe she was a little scared about violence toward her or her family? As a parent, I know I’d think about that.
Okay, maybe Southern Dragon is correct when he Always says Do Not Feed.
But, OTOH, and this is directed to Selise, I’ve seen you turn conversations around with your patient and kind questions.
Just maybe not this time.
Still, I think it was good of you to try.
Hopefully Rudy has become enuf of a charicature of himself that he will never appear on my TV running for office again. But you can never account for a pol’s ego. *g*
Jello Jay just did a proforma session.
!!!!!
Jogger@59, uncalled for.
You have one chance to show you’re not a troll.
Hillary fundraisers sending letters to Paterson telling him Caroline isn’t qualified.
We never know how anyone will vote until they have to cast votes. Donna Edwards and FISA? Chris Carney and everything? CK’s professional life, family background, and early support for Obama make me feel comfortable with her Liberal cred.
Hmmmm, of all the things we have to be concerned with at this point, I am not sure this is all that important.
If she is appointed, it is fine by me. She just might be very effective at moving the progressive agenda forward. Don’t underestimate the power of celebrity in this culture.
If she is not appointed, that is fine by me as well.
Wait, wait, please! I may or may not agree with him, but I had the impression he was expressing a point of view. He doesn’t sound trollish to me, but then remember, I go all naive sometimes.
Is that an Onion headline? If not, it should be.
Nope. Just switched to msnbc & Schuster was reporting it. Apparently it’s an online petition. I’ll see if I can find it.
Jane’s a little busy pillaging Whoville and scuttling the Bailey Building and Loan to respond right now
Does feel that way sometimes. Sister Christian has become the standard bearer, hasn’t she?
bonkers,
Can’t find it on first try.
eriposte has a pretty good take.
funny
Thanks for clarifying. Jane has taken the low road on this, and not just in this post.
Try reading #59 and #76.
Yes, ma’am.
Jane’s opinion on this post is more tempered than the previous post you referenced, imho Jane was tilting into MoDo territory on that one.
I am reading everyone’s opinion on this – but basically I am not against a legacy pick since anyone chosen will have to prove her/himself to the voters in NY in 2010. Besides, CK’s legacy is hard to ignore, if she can use that to improve lives & promote a progressive agenda, so be it.
Our society tolerates/encourages inherited positions in all spectrums, music and the arts, sports, business and industry, publishing and media.
We can weed out incompetence and arrogance (exception being Bush 43’s re-election, he got a pass due to 9/11). Another Kennedy in Congress really can’t be such a bad thing, can it?
bonkers
Here’s one anti-Caroline online petition. Don’t know if it’s the one Schuster was referring to.
http://www.petitiononline.com/nysen/petition.html
Thank you.
So does Al Giordano:
http://narcosphere.narconews.c…..stmas-pony
Forest for the trees.
I’m blonde too and sometimes I get my feelings hurt easily.
I just took some chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. Would you care for some?
seems to me that there are two issues here that are getting conflated. one is our individual and probably widely varying opinions on CK as a politician and potential senator. the other – and to me more important – issue is the process by which senators are chosen. for far too long it’s been more of an appointment than any kind of democratic process. what’s happening now with CK is imo just so obvious that it cries out to be both mocked and challenged.
demi – i’ve been called a troll here, so perhaps i’m a little sensitive to the accusation, but i’d rather assume the best and be disappointed than unfairly assume the worst.
Thanks. A rather lame letter I might add.
There’s a Dkos poll going right now, and CK is at 66%. She’s got a 50% lead over “Other,” and Gillibrand and Cuomo are in the single digits. 2010 is just around around the corner!
internet tough guy
Get a map. It’s New York, we need a very strong, liberal/progressive presence.
If CK would do something to demonstrate that, we’d all be thrilled. AFAIK, she still doesn’t want wind power in Nantucket Sound.
Do you you work for Big Coal?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/12/15/134148/02
Yes, a Caroline appointment would be the caricature of the process that would finally point out how rotten the whole process is. The strong feelings arise from Caroline as a tipping point as much as anything else.
Yes, please, and thank you.
I spent a lot of time her before the election begging people to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate. We all knew neither Barack nor HRC were liberals. Now the election is over and we’re gearing up for the PRIMARIES in 2010. We need a very strong liberal/progressive out of New York. If CK is that person, let’s see it. We don’t need another JoLie.
The entire Northeast is blue. I think the Senate race in NY ends after the primary.
I’m not necessarily against a legacy choice-Klynn above made a logical argument for CK’s reasons for wanting the seat. However, before Paterson makes the appointment, I think it’s incumbent on Ms. Kennedy to clearly state her public policy positions and political philosophy.
Taking a stand on U.S. torture policy (God, I hate writing that), in light of the shoe flinger, is a good place to start.
What? You don’t think our Sentator Mukasey (D-Hedge Funds) is progressive enough?
I’ve been called the same. But, no one’s ever accused me of having my head up Jane’s ass before. Ha!
A first time for everything. Good old lake.
the article may have already been discussed here… i had to resort to the dead tree version of the newspapers this weekend and was surprised to see your senator made the front page in a not very flattering article on the wall street ties – nice pic of him and kashkari above the fold. will go find the online link in case you missed it..
Thank you, I didn’t mean to imply you were.
You were offering reasoned discourse, which I always appreciate.
Nobody on a Democratic blog enjoys criticizing the lone surviving child of JFK. It’s about what the country needs from the Senator from New York right now. That’s a legitimate question and Jane’s asking it. The longer it goes unanswered, or with responses such as hiring Isay, the more necessary it is for us to raise the questions even more urgently.
A Champion of Wall Street Reaps Benefits
If she didn’t have Kennedy in her name, this discussion would not be happening because no one would know or care if she wanted to be a Senator or not.
And her dad would likely be alive today. And she probably never woulda had a pony. And no one woulda tried to blow her up. And if I wouldn’t have looked to my right a second time this morning, I mighta stepped out in front of that bus and wouldn’t be able to type this here text. Whew! Close call.
She campaigned for Kerry as well, quite extensively. I assume she did so because The Party and/or Kerry campaign asked her to.
It’s one thing to object to political inbreeding, nepotism, and the like. It’s quite another to demonize someone unfairly, as Hamsher appears to be doing here. Let’s call this attempt to smear Kennedy with a thick coating of Joe Lieberman what it actually is: an example of political Hackery. If you don’t think she should be Senator because she’s a Kennedy, why not just say so.
Lisa Derrick has a new post up on the front page/Silo: “He Peed in a Cup: Meet the Potential Secretary of Agriculture”
I profoundly disagree with Jane — but the flaw is she just hasn’t done a little research to find out what Caroline Kennedy has been doing in recent years. Jane is making things up — but it isn’t all that hard to find the factual material.
First — Caroline Kennedy has raised three children, the two girls are in college, in their early 20’s, and he son is sixteen, a senior in High School. If you have read anything at all about the differences of opinion in the Kennedy Clan — one big difference was that Jackie believed in raising your own children, and she was highly critical of Ethel for depending too much on hired help. I think this is one reason why you haven’t seen CK out leading protest marches and the like.
Second — from the time Caroline was about sixteen, Jackie prepared her to take the family seat on the Kennedy Foundation and Library Board. She was tutored for this over a number of years by Ted Sorensen, and he has much about this in his recent book, Counselor. She went on the board in the early 90’s, and changed the direction of the Kennedy Library, which had become dull under the leadership of the Irish Mafia — Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell. Her first big project was a three part conference concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis, the first part was held in Havana, second part in Moscow, last session in Cambridge. Working with State and people in the Clinton Administration, and many historians, she got the archives in all three places declassified, and then arranged a host of historians and scholars who could exploit these, and lead the project. There are a fairly large number of books that have emerged from this effort in Russian, Spanish and English. It was a huge undertaking, and the scholars who know what was involved in releasing the documents and all consider Caroline first rate as a negotiator on a sensitive project. In the process of accomplishing this, Caroline also managed to change the focus of the Kennedy Library Board — and the staff it employes, away from the “museum” stuff and toward activist and collaborative policy matters.
Caroline is a lawyer, JD from Columbia. She is specialized in Constitutional Law, and of her six books, two deal with Civil Rights/Civil Liberties. Her actual legal work is part time, and in association with the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and she does appeals work on a part time basis. This is combined with her being a member of the board of the NAACP Legal and Educational Foundation, frequently known as the INK fund. This is the group of Civil Rights Attorneys that was first formed in the 1930’s by Thurgood Marshall to do the long series of cases necessary — and today it is the premier group doing appeals work in this field. (It is not the NAACP — different incorporation, different funding.) Caroline’s law firm does much of this work so she has been for more than ten years at the intersection of the two groups. She is not a trial lawyer, she researches and writes appeals briefs.
Since the early part of this decade, she has also been involved with K-12 School Reforms — her particular interest seems to be the Charter School Movement. Because taxes do not support the start up costs for these schools in NYCity — buildings, special equipment and the like — if they are to succeed, they need fundraisers, and CK has raised about a hundred million dollars for NY City Charter Schools. All sorts of studies show that Charters flop big time if they don’t have resources, but if they have proper ones, they can do a great job.
In the Obama Campaign, Caroline’s job was to set up and carry out the Obama Fellows Program. This was the short courses in community organization that was then followed by working all over the country in the various field offices. She did the recruitment, organized the courses, and then had a hand in the placement. Most of the Fellows were recent College Grads or students who took a semester out to work for Obama. They were the backbone of what we called the Ground Game.
Finally the off beat thing that intrigues me that Caroline has done involved working with her Mother on a huge book about Islamic Law and Governance and Art in Mughal India. She spent most of a year in Jaipur India taking classes, and working with scholars and museum people selecting material for the book, and ultimately getting things photographed for the large format production. I knew a political science professor who was in Jaipur on a Fulbright, and overlapped with CK — and he said she was a very serious and respected scholar in that environment.
Personally, I find this effort to bash Caroline very distasteful, because it seems to me that those who follow that tendency are not seriously looking at her work and potential in an honest way. I don’t see the difference between what some are doing and the radio work of Rush and company. Yes — there are questions to be raised as to whether she has what it takes to carry legislation in the Senate — but I remind that Paul Wellstone had been teaching Political Science at a small elite liberal arts college all of his career before running for the Senate. He had never served in elective office before the Senate. Not every Senator needs to work his/her way up the career ladder in state government to be effective in the Senate. There clearly is an advantage in appointing someone with name recognition who can easily raise outside funds to this opening — the estimate is that 70 million might be necessary for the 2010 race plus the 2012 contest. CK would not be depending on DSCC for those funds. Her fundraising would not take away from others in NY in the next two election cycles.
Sara – great post.
Hillary did coast into her first “elected” Senate seat. The Rangel democrats pushed out everyone to give her the nomination. Then Rudy G got divorced and sick and quit the race, leaving Rick Lazio. It is absurd to criticize CK for being a Kennedy with all the connections yada when HRC brought nothing in the way of credentials to her Senate candidacy except Wall Street support nurtured by Bill. Who would be better than CK at this point? Mario Cuomo, Jr., Jerry Nadler? I hope that Obama has a wisp of an idea that by appointing the Clintons to SOS and getting them out of the Senate and out of New York that we are all better off which we are.
As far as the need to “run” for office as a qualifier, this is a bit quixotic. CK will have to run for office to stay in the Senate. The more practical issue is whether she is a sure bet to support BO and the answer seems to be yes. I certainly would much rather have CK in the Senate than HRC, expecially when it comes to important issues.
You have convinced me…She is carrying on her family public service call. Thank you Sara for, as usual, bringing a well thought perspective.
Sara, I appreciate the post, but for every Wellstone, there’s a Herb Kohl.
Her giving in 2007 is to both HRC and Barack. She only endorsed Barack in January 2008.
She appears to be against wind turbines in Nantucket Sound. I’d love to be wrong, but what evidence is there she’s going to stand against torture in the U.S. Senate if she can’t stand up to her neighbors on Cape Cod for a wind farm?
She’s only 51. A couple of years in the House make sense. I hope I’m wrong, because I really think Patterson will appoint her.
“She’s only 51. A couple of years in the House make sense. I hope I’m wrong, because I really think Patterson will appoint her.”
In the best of all possible worlds, yes, she should run for the House, or for a seat in Albany. Sadly Jerry Nadler seems to want to keep his seat which is where I belive CK lives and votes.
It strikes me everyone believes in apprentiseship here. If you grew up in a very political family, don’t you think your whole life would be something of an apprentiseship — and maybe the thing to do is evaluate it on its own terms?
Sara, this post deserves to be unleashed from the confines of a blog response and posted alone. I was only aware of a small amount of the information you provided, and I appreciate the perspective.
“If you grew up in a very political family” are the words that make some of us have our blood run cold. We don’t want, need or like *political families*.(UGH, dynasty anyone?)
Political families, like the Kennedys, Clintons, or bush’s tend to think alike and the way it’s going, we’re NOT going to be getting new blood in government, we’re going to be stuck with clones.
We sort of get that Caroline Kennedy as the scion of a rich, politically powerful and connected family has not been asleep during her 51 years. But you are really trying to have it both ways. She committed herself to a private life but she also has a newly discovered public life. She is a Kennedy for purposes of making a serious bid for the Senate seat but once that’s done, she should be judged as an individual like everyone else. OTOH she was groomed from the age of 16 to be part of the family legacy machine. On the other, these are her own accomplishments.
What bothers some of us here is the inconsistency. We would be up in arms if a Bush with this kind of record was chosen as a Senator but with Caroline Kennedy it seems to be OK. If Caroline’s last name was not Kennedy and she had this résumé, she would not be up for consideration at all. Yet when this point is raised, the burden is put on us to show why she would not be qualified. This last I find truly bizarre since that above all else is Caroline Kennedy’s responsibility. I raised a whole series of issues all important. And as far as I know she has not addressed one of them in a public forum.
In short, what we are seeing is the same old same old. We are being told this is change even though it’s always the same old names.
Where was she on FISA?
Again, I hope I’m wrong, but the more closely we look at her, this looks like a huge win for Vichy Dems in a blue state in the very blue Northeast.