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Candidate Caroline Is Off to a Bad Start
Don Heupel/AP
A week ago the author questioned whether Caroline Kennedy was qualified to be a senator. Now that Kennedy has started sharing her platform, has she changed her mind?
In the days since declaring her actual interest in Hillary Clinton’s senate seat, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy has made tentative attempts at campaigning—insofar as leaving Fifth Avenue amounts to running a rally. But in fairness, she has had some meetings with the upstate apparatchiks, which seems to be serving as a proxy for speaking to the press or the public. We’ve seen scenes of her running from microphones as if they were assassins (not an entirely irrational thought), punctuated by a few words at a dais, mostly to say she’s honored that the governor is considering her for the job, that she has a lifetime of public service to show for herself, and that she’s managed to raise a family, which counts for something.
At least when Hillary Clinton went on her listening tour, she heard from the people and formed her own opinions. Candidate Caroline just looks like she’s sightseeing.
“Somebody from the press corps had the audacity to ask when she was last in Syracuse,” noted George Will wryly, on ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos. “This question assumes that she’s actually been in Syracuse before.”
It was nice of her to fill out a questionnaire for Politico.com, but life is not a law school exam.
I think it’s safe to say that things have not started off well for Caroline, and all the same, no one doubts that she will be New York’s next senator. It does have the feel of a done deal, the OED example at the definition of fait accompli, even if no one can think of a good reason why it should happen. Maybe we should just let her have it, on legacy and money alone. Perhaps we are overestimating the importance of being a senator: after all, any single member of the Senate is only 1% of half the legislative branch, which itself is only a third of the federal government taken in total. How much damage—or difference—can result?
All of which is to say, given the very low stakes of this whole contest—to make matters more ridiculous, only one person, Governor Paterson, is voting—Caroline Kennedy might as well loosen up, and chat with her would-be constituents. She ought to try playing the part, if only for laughs. I mean, it was nice of her to fill out a questionnaire for Politico.com, but life is not a law school exam. It’s time for Caroline to speak out.
After all, she’s no Jackie Kennedy. With her widely-spaced dark eyes, her mother had the ethereal other-worldly beauty of a bird or some other herbivore: She was a peaceful dove, pursued by the vulturous paparazzi. Caroline Kennedy is not so similarly blessed; instead she’s got her father’s rugged good looks and slightly nasal voice: to impress us, she needs to be genuinely articulate; she can’t win our love with glib glances, as Jackie did. But to say this is a campaign of surrogates would not even be quite right—Caroline’s most outspoken spokeswoman is her cousin Kerry, who just happens to be ex-wife of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who just happens to be her leading rival for the senate seat. Is this politics or a family food fight?
Look, there’s something so plainly dignified about Caroline that floats above the political fray. Even seeing her chew collard greens at Sylvia’s with Al Sharpton the other day seemed oddly out of place—who knew she engaged in ordinary life-sustaining activities? This is a divine—as in godly—quality that Caroline inherited from Jackie, who nonetheless insisted on working as a Doubleday editor, and by all accounts even did her own Xeroxing. The tension in the Kennedy clan between royal insouciance and hardy human-ness is playing out right now in the person of Caroline Kennedy, and only because she insists on pursuing a paying job that would require her to represent the interests of an entire state. The question people keep asking is if she’s qualified —what I can’t figure out is why she wants the job in the first place. And there’s only one way I or anyone else is ever going to find out: Caroline Kennedy needs to explain herself. Loud and clear.
Elizabeth Wurtzel is author of Prozac Nation, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, and More, Now, Again. She has been popular music critic for The New Yorker and New York, and the film reviewer for Nerve. Her work has been widely anthologized.
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Elizabeth Wurtzel is author of Prozac Nation, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, and More, Now, Again. She has been popular music critic for the New Yorker and New York magazine, and the film reviewer for Nerve.
Uh, Qualified?
Elizabeth Wurtzel is author of Prozac Nation, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, and More, Now, Again. She has been popular music critic for the New Yorker and New York magazine, and the film reviewer for Nerve.
I agree that her "campaign" -- such as it is -- has gotten off to a ludicrously bad start, one from which it cannot recover. To be charitable, this would be a highly controversial appointment; Paterson doesn't need to take this risk; there are plenty of other, more able people he can give that job to whom nobody would complain about.
Your article about wether Caroline Kennedy is qualified, really didn't get read fully. Due to your comment in the first paragraph about "assassins" and "not an entirely irrational thought". Comments like these only highlight the fact that you know little if anything about american political history not to mention decency. Only someone with fractured thoughts could actually process a statement like that and expect it to be editorial or jounalism. My advice is to go back to school and take some history lessons. Refrain from making comments on things you know nothing or little about. Study the nuance of history, the subtle, that facts. I am so tired of the small-minded, buzword mentality pretending to be intelligence, we just survived 8 years of someone like you. Get a clue!!! History 101
It's nice she's waking up from private life and imagining a future for herself in the public arena - I wish her well.
But this time must be considered a 'toe in the water' - we see she's there, now let her earn our desire to vote her in.
Quantum (above) has it exactly right. It is embarrassingly clear that the author has no sense of historical context and, in this blog, that's inexcusable.
Caroline Kennedy is at least as qualified for the Senate as Cuomo and, in many ways, a potentially more effective advocate for New York from the junior Senator position -- because of her background she will punch well above her weight from day one.
Anyway, the woman seems decent, honest and modest; attributes one doesn't normally associate with New York politicians. She certainly can't do worse than any of the other candidates and there are several reasons to believe that she might do much, much better.
such a clear, concise, and articulate example of one woman attacking another woman for absolutely no reason whatsoever. would be a perfect example for the OED definition of whatever the politically correct word is for this phenomenon.
Enough with the patronizing comments about Wurtzel! What is this crap? The only thing irrational here this weird obsession with belittling the author.
Using a comparison of her looks with her mother's is hardly an explanation or qualifier of her candidacy.
One quick look at your picture and I wonder what qualifies you to write anything beyond run spot run?
I've seen Ms. Kennedy on the news. I've heard her comments that being a good fundraiser, good writer and good mother qualify her for the job. For some reason, she thinks that those achievements are rare and noteworthy enough to make her the leading contender for the appointment. My favorite Carolyn reason for running is "my family has a long history of public service" as if a genetic yearning for public office is enough. My family has a long history of being musically inclined, but I'm still tone deaf. I think she is, too.
Her answers to the press have a clipped aren't-you-impertinent quality to them that show's me she doesn't have the common touch a good politician needs. I get the feeling that if she shook hands with me during a campaign stop, as soon as I turned away she'd be looking for an aide to give her the hand sanitizer.
Dear Mary50,
Sorry, but the author's reference to "assassins" is tasteless in the extreme, as are her pointless comments about Mrs. Schlossberg's appearance compared to her mother (I'd have thought that most women would be offended by that!).
In any case, Caroline doesn't have to appeal to anyone other than Gov. Paterson -- what you and I and the rest of the state thinks isn't relevant.
She will be appointed and will do a great job; wait and see.
ah, a big DITTO to Quantum's entry here.....
geesh...Tina, what up?
It is hard to take the author seriously with the comment on running from a microphone like it was an assassin. Whether or not you agree with the politics of the Kennedy clan, you should be able to find empathy for the pain the family has suffered. Trivializing their tragedy to make the story more attention grabbing is a cheap way to get noticed. Of course the main point seems to be that she just doesn't look quite right. Next time just try and be more persuasive and I might take your writing seriously. Reading this I had to wonder why you write at all...
The Caroline Kennedy debate has made me wonder if any of us have a concrete idea of what qualifies a person to be a member of the Senate. Nepotism obviously doesn't, but what positive qualities would?
I'm with quantum: can a glance be glib? This blogger could do LA celebrities, but not politics.
I was a teenager when Caroline's father and uncle were both assassinated. Using the word "assassin" in this context was probably not the best idea in light of that traumatic event. I truly don't know if Caroline Kennedy would be a good Senator. I find the Senate mostly irrelevant to the concerns of ordinary people. But if we are going to have a Senate, it should be at least popluated with people that care about the average person. In that regard I expect that Caroline will be exemplary.
I cannot comprehend the way Caroline must feel about losing her father, her uncle to violence and her brother and mother also in other ways. I think that in regard to Caroline the word "assassinate" should be off-limits.
We need to find out more about Caroline. Until then she has my tentative approval.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Her arrogant attempt to step directly to a high Senate seat literally churns my stomach. She represents all the worst of the 'elitist' tag.
sinverguenza
as buckley says
Thank you.
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