Since succession to the Wellstone seat is the overriding current Senate issue in Minnesota questions of succession to the Bobby Kennedy - Hilary Clinton seat take a back seat, locally.
However, the situation is interesting. Start with "The limits of celebrity" a Calgary reprint of an Ottawa paper's op-ed:
The New York Times headline calls her "forceful but elusive." In reading the transcript of Caroline Kennedy's interview, it becomes clear that the headline writer was being kind.
Kennedy, having spent a lifetime avoiding the media, is now giving a round of interviews about her candidacy for Hillary Rodham Clinton's vacated Senate seat. So it's understandable that she's a little uncomfortable. That might explain the defensive and opaque responses to reporters' questions, and the painful repetition of the space-filling tic "you know."
But she is a well-connected and wealthy person, with every opportunity to learn how to express her opinions. She grew up in a family full of politicians and activists. If she hasn't grasped the basics of public speaking and public policy, despite all her advantages, she probably isn't ready for a Senate seat.
It's also worth noting that she can't turn her rookie status to political advantage. She's not an unpolished populist, coming up from the lower classes to challenge the elite. She is the elite. If vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin had told reporters something like, "This is not, you know, about me, it's about what I can do to, you know, help New York get its fair share, help working families, travel the state, bring attention to what is going on up there,"Democrats would have guffawed and Republicans would have blamed the "East Coast liberal media" for setting her up. When it's an East Coast liberal who's flustered and vague, it's hard for partisans to know their roles.
In the Times interview, Kennedy referred several times to her "family tradition" and to the potential benefits, to her constituents, of having a celebrity speak for them. Neither her genes, nor her celebrity, are enough to make her a political candidate with something interesting to say.
Celebrity again the key word in a western New York LTE from a Buffalo reader, "The last thing we need is a celebrity senator":
So Caroline Kennedy always wanted to be a senator just like her daddy and her uncles, Bobby and Teddy. As the Church Lady might say, “Well isn’t that special.”
Most people probably don’t know that she does travel upstate, too. From the New York Times: “Ms. Kennedy said she had spent some time in the Catskills and the Adirondacks; when asked her favorite place in the state outside of the city and Long Island, she said, ‘I like visiting historical sites. I loved visiting the battlefields of Saratoga.’ ” And the New York City pols are falling all over themselves agreeing about how well qualified she is.
Someone described the honor guard surrounding her downstate trip as a phalanx. All she needed was a flatbed of trumpeters leading her motorcade crossing the Hudson to bring to mind those movies of Caesar riding triumphantly through the provinces on his way to Rome.
The other coast, Olympia Washington, an editorial with "privilege" the key wording, "Caroline Kennedy needs to earn the privilege of serving":
Caroline Kennedy's timing is impeccable. One shouldn't expect any less from someone whose surname is synonymous with "Camelot," all things gracious and semi-royal.
Problem is, her decision to finally put the family's sterling brand name to personal use has come too late. She shouldn't be rewarded with a New York Senate seat just because she wants it.
The backlash Kennedy is experiencing gives weight to the dawn of a new era: People are weary of those with influence calling the shots, expecting things that others earn, no matter how sincere the intention.
Kennedy's grab for the Senate seat that Gov. David Paterson must fill when Hillary Clinton moves to her appointment as secretary of state is a perfectly timed example.
Kennedy, now that she is finally acquiescing to interviews about her desire to be a senator, has said she felt called in part because of the Obama presidency.
"I think it's a special moment in my life and in the life of this country, where there is this unique opportunity to help bring change to Washington," she told The New York Times.
Yes, Obama has ignited a grassroots sense that everyone has a role to play in reshaping America. The idea that from the CEO to the parent leading the PTA, a civic role can be found. Kennedy is right to see the similarity of that message, and the messages of her father.
But the line was "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." Not: what plum job your country can hand to you.
The rub is that the highly intelligent Kennedy likely would do a good job. Her connections with who's who in New York, her ability to solicit cooperation from differing segments of the social strata - all of that might bode well for a Sen. Caroline Kennedy, and by trickle-down for New York and the country.
But she'd need to earn the privilege of serving people, through an election. And that seems to be exactly what she has not wanted to do.
Kennedy has been squirrely about this. A New York Times reporter asked her repeatedly if she would have run for the seat, or if she'd consider contesting it in 2010 if she is not appointed. Kennedy dodged the question so assiduously that the reporter remarked, "It sounds like you only want it if it's handed to you."
Lower Hudson valley op-ed, "Kennedy needs to make her case for Senate":
Caroline Kennedy might make a fine senator from New York - or she might not.
It is hard to tell from what she has said so far.
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Would she abolish tenure for teachers and offer them merit pay instead? She declined to tell The New York Times.
Would she repeal President Bush's tax cuts on the wealthy immediately?
"Well, you know, that's something, obviously, that, you know, in principle and in the campaign, you know, I think that, um, the tax cuts, you know, were expiring and needed to be repealed," she was quoted by the Daily News as saying.
That seems to be a yes, but hardly a straightforward one.
What prompted her to seek the seat?
Two events, she told The Associated Press: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and her work for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
"Many people remember that spirit that President Kennedy summoned forth," she said of her father. "Many people look to me as somebody who embodies that sense of possibility. I'm not saying that I am anything like him, I'm just saying there's a spirit that I think I've grown up with that is something that means a tremendous amount to me."
Why would she be a good senator?
"So I think in many ways, you know, we want to have all kinds of different voices, you know, representing us, and I think what I bring to it is, you know, my experience as a mother, as a woman, as a lawyer, you know, I've been an education activist for the last six years here, and you know, I've written seven books - two on the Constitution, two on American politics," she told The New York Times.
"So obviously, you know, we have different strengths and weaknesses," she said.
Since Kennedy emerged as a possible replacement for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, she has been criticized relentlessly. New York does not need another celebrity senator, her detractors say. Seasoned lawmakers should be considered over such a political novice.
If Clinton is confirmed as Obama's secretary of state, it would be up to Gov. David Paterson to choose her replacement. At first Kennedy was faulted for avoiding the press, then for giving less-than-eloquent explanations of why she should be chosen.
The "you knows" sprinkled throughout her responses prompted more articles than any position she took, and lots of unsolicited advice from speech coaches. She acknowledged she had not mastered the sound bite, her spokesman, Stefan Friedman, said.
"But if Gov. Paterson appoints her, she'll fight her heart out to make sure New York families have their voices heard in Washington," he said.
I'm not among the critics who carp about political dynasties. She has an interesting résumé, she might do well for New York in the Senate, but she will have to make a stronger case for herself. Perhaps it is her inexperience, but she has not shown the forcefulness she will need to convince New York that she should take Clinton's place.
Embodying a sense of possibility is insufficient. She needs to say which policies she supports and which, such as school vouchers, she does not. She needs to say how she would harness that sense of possibility. What would she do with it? She cannot be coy even if she must introduce herself to New Yorkers while not appearing to pressure the governor, a worry she would not have if she were running for the seat rather than seeking an appointment.
Clinton herself had no experience as an elected official. She had worked to elect her husband and had been the first lady for eight years, but had never won a seat for herself. Still, we knew what her interests were, we knew about her attempts to reform health care and improve education. [...]
National Review, "Like Son Jeb as President":
Former President Bush (there's currently only one of those!) has endorsed his other governor-son for president. As we await David Paterson's Caroline Kennedy Senate appointment, I have to think that Jeb for President is not the craziest idea. Jeb for President can't happen four years from now. But if Jeb Bush runs for the Martinez Senate seat and puts in some hard time there, voters might consider the presidential possibility, even if he would be a third Bush (the media is another story and might make a win impossible). [...]
Gawker:
Future magic unicorn senator Caroline Kennedy was the only New York City employee who got to avoid disclosing her assets when she worked for the schools. That's right: Kennedy was privileged.
Granted, that surprises basically no one, since Kennedy's last name and family privilege is the only reason she's looking like a shoo-in for a job she's utterly unqualified to hold.
But it is interesting how much of a free pass the prospective New York senator got in her work for the city Department of Education from 2002 to 2004, judging from today's Times story.
Kennedy was apparently the only person in the entire city government who got to aboid filing a 32-page personal financial disclosure form. Even Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who like Kennedy earned only $1 per year in salary, had to disclose his assets. Kennedy's two top deputies had to disclose. Two other top officials with nominal salaries had to disclose. Kennedy got pass.
How? The city keeps changing its answer:
City officials have most often pointed to Ms. Kennedy’s decision to accept $1-a-year in salary. More recently, Joel I. Klein, chancellor of New York’s schools, explained that she was ultimately exempt from the requirement because the department did not deem her to be a “policymaker.”
The Times has been hammering Kennedy on this issue. It already mentioned her pass from the city in a story two weeks ago, in which Kennedy refused to make detailed financial disclosures to the Times itself.
The only trouble? No one is alleging that Kennedy has any ill-gotten riches. It's mildly upsetting that she got a pass on some public disclosure laws, but fault for that lies with the city. The problem is that Kennedy couldn't get financially crafty if she wanted to. The U.S. Senate will eat this woman alive.
That is enough for a flavor, see mainstream media, here, here, here, and here.
In Britain, it is impolite to ask the Queen to explain herself, beyond what she cares to say. There is a taste of that expectation either actual or read by some into the way Caroline Kennedy has posed herself, arguably too circumspect in some ways, too bold in others. But, so what? If Norm Coleman goes to the Senate, it's been cheapened enough that faulting Ms. Kennedy in any way for that body is out of line. She can buy her own clothing. That distinguishes her from Palin and, believing stories about Kazeminy largess, our Sen. Coleman. And when comparing the Bush clan to the Kennedy clan, sure the luggage is set down in differing parties, but who exactly did Joe Kennedy or Preston Bush like in the 30's, in Germany, as best for the situation? Also, each dynasty is bare-knuckle to larcenous, depending on who's telling the story - be it Cook County 1960 election returns to defeat Nixon, plus the Joe Kennedy legend, or Bush in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004. Is this Kennedy above such frays - separate and apart from lower motive; change anyone might believe in, from a Kennedy?
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WaPo photo, here.