Gov. Paterson Should Pick Caroline Kennedy
I'm delighted Caroline Kennedy is seeking the soon-to-be-vacant junior senator seat in New York.
With Hillary Clinton's departure New York loses alot of juice in the Senate. Hillary came in to the Senate as a novice (like Caroline would) but had instant clout and credibility because of who she was -- and who she was connected to.
Same with Caroline who also, like Hillary, brings the aura of future President or Vice President. Who else in New York politics can match that?
As an Obama guy, I've never been impressed with the experience argument. I like brains, character, liberal politics and the ability to attract top staff. Yes, we've only heard of Caroline because of who her parents were. But the same applied to Hillary; she was Bill's wife and that made her First Lady and a credible candidate. Now she is going to be Secretary of State.
There is only one significant difference between Caroline candidacy and Hillary's.
Caroline is a New Yorker who has worked on New York issues her entire adult life (particularly in the area of education). The Kennedy family has been associated with New York since the 1920's. Her uncle was New York's martyred senator. Hillary had no connection to New York whatsoever.
But she represented it well.
As far as the differences between Caroline and the other potential senators from New York. (1) Kennedy was a key Obama supporter when he needed her. He'll return the favor many times and New Yorkers will benefit. (2) She will have no problem raising the money to defeat any Republican.
Patterson should pick her and I hope President Obama weighs in and tells him so. She stuck her neck out for Obama; he should do the same for her.
As a New Yorker, I'm pleased that Caroline Kennedy wants to run and I'd be very happy with her as my Jr. Senator.
December 15, 2008 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gut reaction of a former New York resident (probably spent about a third of my life there till I got to here):
Whereas I honestly didn't feel excited at all at the thought of Hillary representing NY, indeed was glad I had moved by the time she ran, I applaud Caroline Kennedy for running. I could sit here and write a bunch of reasons. But instead, I'm simply going to stand up and applaud.
I admit, maybe it's the Kennedy cache. And maybe it's because I stood in line for hours to walk past her dad's coffin, when I was a Freshman in college. And maybe I'm hoping she'll pick up her uncle's standard and see health care passed for our country. Whatever.... I'm pleased.
(now they'll talk even more about us, LisB...)
December 15, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jefferson objected to hereditary offices. We should be wary of appointing offspring to the Senate.
This loophole could fill up the Senate with sons, nieces, grandchildren of Senators.
I do not want Biden's kid either - even if he is a wonderful person with many outstanding qualities.
We have just seen Bush's kid, calamitous Bush The Younger, try to be president : worst disaster ever for our country.
A person who disdains slogging through the hard work of getting elected, meeting the great unwashed, shaking hands in bowling alleys, should NEVER be appointed to the Senate.
You want Cheney's daughter appointed to the Senate ?
Think about it.
December 16, 2008 12:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
classic throwing the baby out with the bathwater thinking, Brian S.
yes with Bush we've seen the absolute worst that can happen with inbred moronism, but Kennedy could very well be the best that could happen, based on her long-term low-key but vital work on education and managing the family's extensive policy apparatus, involving the distribution of progressive policy people throughout Congress and government.
just because you aren't aware of her impressive and effective qualifications, doesn't mean they don't exist, and she will use them to create a better government and more enlightened nation.
Yes, Caroline. Yes!
December 16, 2008 4:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Facts not in evidence, but please share details if you have them. She was a fundraiser gathering private donations for the NYC public school system. How does she feel about No Child Left Behind? Is there a real expert on education that does not have a very public opinion on this? What else has she done in the field of education? What has she doen for the family's policy positions besides raise money for candidates? Is she a progressive like her uncle or more moderate than Obama? She is a blank slate. She has taken no stances other than to support Obama.
No, Caroline, No - she has done nothing to have this position handed to her. If she wants it she should run for it. This sense of entitlement is appalling.
December 16, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agree.
There are many lovely society persons, with impressive genealogies and charity credentials, who would not disgrace themselves as senators ...
We want to maintain a Republic. A senator has to earn his/her seat by dealing with the public. She/he must shake hands, listen to concerns, meet with groups of all sorts, bargain, haggle, persuade, coax, twist arms ... in a word, get dirty.
Consider how out-of-touch Ms Kennedy is ... has she ever had to look for job, wash dishes or fix a flat ? Does she ever speak to persons nowhere near her exalted position ?
Suggestion : run for the local school board to get started.
December 16, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course Caroline Kennedy "wants to run."
But she apparently wants her maiden voyage on the stormy seas of electoral politics to be as an incumbent senator.
Lyndon Johnson called Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy "the Harvards" and was impressed by them. Speaker Sam Rayburn told LBJ "They may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once."
The phrases "born on third base" and "think they hit a triple" come to mind.
December 15, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Neal, she's been working in support of progressive policy and involved in leadership capacity in its administration her whole adult life, and now she wants to go public with it finally.
Good for her, and good for the nation if she finally assumes the mantle of leadership that was taken so nastily from us by the proto-fascist uber-elite so many years ago.
Taking your baseball metaphor to its truer destination: She was intentionally walked to first, and by hard work and grit stole second and then third.
Steal home, Caroline! Run!
December 16, 2008 4:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
You call Hillary a novice, but while she held no elected office, she had clear policy positions. She was a force in both the White House and Arkansas on domestic policy. Hillary was not a NYer, but the NY dems begged her to run to prevent Rudolph Giuiliani. Which brings up another important difference - Hillary ran for the seat and won it. It was not handed to her by virtue of her last name. Hillary built a political legacy with Bill, she didn't spend a lifetime intentionally staying out of politics and just focusing on the legacy of her family.
My problem with Caroline Kennedy is she has almost no political record to speak of. She's spent a lifetime in figurehead roles fundraising or doing things to promote her father's legacy. She's never taken a tough stance on anything, except coming out of the shadows to campaign for Obama.
Governor Patterson should not allow himself to be pressured into giving a Senate seat. If she wants the seat she should have to work for it, not have it handed to her on a silver platter.
I'd like to know what kind of Senator she would be before appointing her to office. She'd have two years to establish a real political record. Isn't that the very least we should expect of a US Senator?
December 15, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree!
And can we spell the Governor's name correctly - it's Paterson, not Patterson.
December 15, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course Caroline KENNEDY should be appointed the junior senator from the Union's second most populous state! Her name is KENNEDY, if you hadn't noticed. Her mother was stylish. Her brother was sexy and founded a really excellent mediocre magazine. Her dad was a president--she had opportunities to observe the executive branch from close up, as she cantered past the Oval Office windows on her pony. Her uncle was a NY senator. Her other uncle is a lion of the senate. She lives in a fashionable area out in the Hamptons. And she wears cloths that demonstrate her gravitas.
Maybe if she were to be APPOINTED she would usher in a new camelot, and all our dashed expectations of the short lived JFK admin will be realized.
It's so dramatic!
December 15, 2008 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
There you go again...defending Hillary. Don't mean to condescend, but we're interested in narrative here, not facts(on a Rosenberg thread, to boot!).
December 15, 2008 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm far from convinced, M. J.
1. Hillary had ample experience working in government, first in AK, later as very involved First Lady. Yes, she botched health care, but failures in the course of experience are another sort of experience, valuable in someone who learns from experience.
2. Dynastic politics is exclusive politics. Not good for democracy. That her uncle was New York's senator (after being Attorney General!) when she was 10 years old is neither here nor there.
3. Does Caroline Kennedy bring some extraordinary knowledge of education issues? How many education issues does the Senate deal with, anyway?
4. Does she bring some particular intelligence, eloquence, or other quality? Not demonstrated.
December 15, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your comment is insighful. Dynastic politics is aristocratic politics. Why don't we just rename the Senate the House of Millionaires and Legacies?
December 15, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
We need to balance the dynasties. We need Caroline as a counterweight to Evan Bayh.
December 15, 2008 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Evan Bayh is weightless.
December 16, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no objection to Caroline Kennedy being a Senator but think it would be best for her to run and win an election rather than being appointed. There is little doubt that she would win given her unique celebrity but the electoral process does matter.
Yes, I know there have been other political families who have bypassed the process but they were lesser celebrities or not well known at all, in other words, less comfortably dynastic.
Daniel Larison described it as the Princess Dianification of our politics. Now that is something everyone should object to.
December 15, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
In case you haven't noticed, this position is a 2 year appointment. Anybody getting the job would be an appointee. None of them would have run for Senate.
If Kennedy fails to win in 2010 she is out. There is no assurance that anyone will retain an appointed Senate seat.
December 16, 2008 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, an appointee but not likely a Kennedy. Someone like Caroline needs to at least seem to play by the same rules as everyone else.
Somehow I think Caroline's interest in the position has more to do with replacing Teddy as the fund-raising focus of the Kennedy family Democratic political machine than with the actual Senatorial work. What other Kennedy retains that much Camelot mystique?
Maybe our next electoral reform should include a provision that Congress critters have to serve out the terms for which they are elected before seeking other work. Look at this cycle so far. IL, NY, DE, CO are going to have appointed Senators. Makes one wonder what the 17th Amendment was all about.
December 16, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
No! As an Obama supporter I think earning your way counts for something. Just because she has a famous name, is rich and pre-connected in life is not a reason to select her.
December 15, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see this as a NY issue. The senate is such a strange place in a democracy. Take Florida, Texas, California and NY and you have a large percentage of the total American population and only 8 senators. Although I personally would feel better if Texas only had one.
Local media in NY is so huge compared to mine. State issues become so complicated. But personally, I really do not know that much about Princess Caroline. As a Democrat, she did a good job backing my pick and from what I have heard and read, Caroline is a good liberal.
December 15, 2008 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Caroline will bring class, elegance and political moderation, if nothing else...I wish her well.
December 15, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ, the big difference between Hillary Clinton and Caroline Kennedy is that Hillary brought her argument before the people. She won two elections. The governor (the unelected governor, I keep having to add) shouldn't pick some one who is only prominent by the accident of her birth. Our senator isn't being chosen by New Yorkers, our senator is being imposed on us. Paterson shouldn't be in the business of promoting the royal Kennedy mystique.
Also, I hate the way she's acting. Instead of making the argument for herself, she's just declared herself interested. It's like she's saying, "Okay, I'll be your Senator now." But who the heck asked her?
December 15, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Caroline Kennedy would be a bad choice, for the dynastic reasons stated above. but the Senate is so screwed up anyway; would it really matter to have one more unqualified person in there?
veering slightly off topic: does anyone else find some cognitive dissonance in all the JFK worship? Vietnam was supposedly the moral evil of my generation. Kennedy's largely to blame for our becoming stuck in that country, but no blame accrues to him; he's still our handsome knight from Camelot.
is everybody just too young to remember?
December 15, 2008 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
JFK is an inspiration to Obama but he should also be a caution. Camelot was a tragic story after all.
December 15, 2008 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your post inspired mine below; Eisenhower signed the treaty that embroiled us in Vietnam, Kennedy committed the troops, Nixon f-d it up even further, Ford got us out and only LBJ got the blame. We cannot blame Caroline for this, but we have to remember that the real progressive (can we safely say "liberal" yet?) record belongs to Uncle Ted. Just like mjames1 said, if you have a name and want the seat, you get to run for it; no "gubernatus ex machina."
December 15, 2008 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
As others have noted, the main difference between Hilary Clinton and Caroline Kennedy as NY Senator is that Hilary won her seat in a contested election, whereas Caroline Kennedy will be given her seat through appointment. In my opinion, it would be better either to appoint a caretaker for 2 years and then allow an open seat election. (If Kennedy wants only to be the caretaker, then by all means appoint her.) If Paterson does not take the caretaker option, then the best thing would be to appoint a Democrat elected from upstate NY, since pretty much everyone else is a downstate Dem (Paterson, Cuomo, Schumer, and of course, Clinton). My personal favorite would be Rep. Kristen Gillibrand, since she won in a Republican leaning upstate district and has proven to be a capable fundraiser.
December 15, 2008 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks to all the folks who remind us here that the glorious story of JFK was just that -- a story. Although it's hard to swallow, much of the progress from that era came from belligerent, under-educated, uber-political LBJ. I like what Caroline Kennedy has done in private life, but I don't think that her name should be the ticket to a seat in the nation's nominally highest legislative body. I went along with Hillary in 2000 because I thought that both she and the country deserved a chance to see what she could offer in her own right for a change. I also thought she was an intriguing heir the "intellectual" NY Senate seat (as Chuck Schumer was the logical heir to the "pothole" seat). The Clintons are more like the Johnsons than the Kennedys; they came from lower middle class stock in Dixie and they achieved a "dynasty" that probably lasted through two individuals (think Lynda Byrd Robb; [Saint] LadyBird didn't choose to get overly involved in electoral politics. I doubt that Chelsea will make politics her life). Let's look at the people who have worked in the political trenches in NY -- and have some intellectual weight, too. Jerry Nadler comes to mind. If Ms. Kennedy wants to participate in electoral politics, let her do it the old-fashioned way. A rather nasty analogy just came to mind, and I don't mean it quite this badly: New York's 2009 Senate vacancy is not the same as Chicago's Merchandise Mart after 1929.
December 15, 2008 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary also won her senate seat through name recognition, riding her husband's coattails, and Hillary's alleged "experience" and "good judgment". The Clintonista supporters should be more than GRATEFUL that Obama actually (and without any reservation) selected Hillary as SOS, but apparently it's never enough for some.
Uncle Teddy is urging Caroline while others are questioning it along the same lines of thinking that went into why Hillary and the soon-to-be sworn in POTUS Obama had little to no "experience" when they pursued their political ambitions years ago....
December 15, 2008 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
The issue here is that it's an appointed position. If Caroline Kennedy stood for election in New York she might well win. If you win an election the whole "experience" issue becomes meaningless. The people can hire whoever they choose.
That Hillary's supporters should be grateful that Obama found a place for her in his administration is true enough, but irrelevant to this discussion.
This isn't about Obama and Hillary. It's about New Yorkers getting a qualified caretaker in the senate until an election is held. If Kennedy wants to run in 2010, that's fine by me but she shouldn't have the seat handed to her just because she's somewhat famous.
December 15, 2008 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
So the United States is getting tired of being a republic, they want to go back to being a hereditary monarchy. Other countries are doing that, such as North Korea, Syria and it is believed Egypt is next in line (interesting that each of those countries claims to be "progressive" and "socialist" which are ideologies that supposedly oppose the idea of "aristocracy"). India, a democratic country, also tried it with 3 generations of the Nehru/Gandhi family trying to start a dynasty, but that seems to have sputtered out (although Sonia Gandhi is still a power in the Congress Party, as I understand it).
Okay, the Republicans have attempted to do the same with the Bush (are they still waiting for Jeb's turn), but to see the "progressive" Democrat's doing this as well?
December 16, 2008 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why do so-called democrats (small "d") support the dynastic ambitions of the plutocracy! What has Ms. Kennedy done to merit this position? There are many far better qualified New Yorkers in public life who could be put forward for the post.
I recommend that you read Kevin Phillips book "Bad Money" on the corrosive effect that dynastic politics -- of both parties -- is having on this country. Enough of the Bushes, Kennedys, Gores, Romneys, Udalls, Bayhs, et al (see pages 150-160). We need new blood and new ideas.
December 16, 2008 12:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree completely.
People should read "The Spirit of The Laws" by Montesquieu.
December 16, 2008 1:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
no, you're wrong, with your throwing out the baby with the bathwater non-thinking.
that Gore fellow and the progressive Udall family have been excellent for the political life of this nation. we need more like them.
good leadership often comes from the experience gained in a family that practices sound leadership.
I, too, am against royalty as especially were the first generations of colonizing and revolutionary Americans. But she will stand for election soon enough - twice in two years! That will be crucible enough, people. Think this through and quit your kneejerk rudimentary non-thinking!
Anyway, she will be the perfect counterweight to the Palin type of bimbo politicians, male or female, who want to run this country into the ground of ignorance with their reality-show mentality.
A liberal-to-progressive legacy is extremely valuable in today's politics and governance.
Be pragmatic as well as cautious for our republic!
December 16, 2008 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
She'll stand for re-election only after getting the huge head start of incumbency. Why not give that advantage to a more qualified candidate rather than to the inexperienced member of a famous family?
December 16, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well for me the reason to pick her has nothing to do with her having a big name per se, as either a plus or a minus factor. There are big names who are terrific and there are big names who are duds. It's all about what she as an individual brings to the table, which to my way of thinking is likely to be a lot. I'd thought Rep. Nita Lowey, elbowed out for the nomination during Hillary's Senate race, would be a terrific appointee as well, one who happens to have a lot more legislative experience. But I understand she took herself out of the running.
December 16, 2008 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
She has a right to run, and also to declare her interest in the job. But I agree with those who think her appointment would be a bad idea.
I would think a senior member of New York's congressional delegation would be a better choice. And if Kennedy chooses to run later, the voters can decide whether they want her to represent them. But she shouldn't simply be handed a seat.
December 16, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I certainly understand the aversion to dynastic politics, I have to wonder somewhat about the supposedly tempering and validating election process. Did Bush ever lose an election?
Anyone who writes 2 well received books on constitutional law has, at the very least, gravitas and Caroline's connections couldn't hurt. Her charismatic appeal is minimal and she is no Kennedy party 'boy'. Her career gives no indication of being a calculated endeavor to excel in politics. The possible upside far outweighs the down.
One of the messages of the Obama victory may be that people are more receptive to serious governance than they have been since Watergate.
December 19, 2008 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink