Intriguing

Caroline Unveils Positions

Supports gay marriage; says she always opposed Iraq war.

Questions over Caroline Kennedy's qualifications for Senate remain, but she seems to have learned already the political importance of schmoozing. In a questionnaire for Politico, Kennedy praised New York Gov. David Paterson, who will choose Hillary Clinton's Senate replacement, as "one of the first elected officials in the nation to sound the alarm about our fiscal crisis and he has led the charge to get Washington to give aid to the New York." Politico notes that her stances "seemed calibrated to appeal both to New York's governor ... who will choose the next senator, and its voters, who will have their say in 2010, and again in 2012." Notable among her positions is her support for "full equality and marriage rights" for same-sex couples—something that both Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer oppose. Her spokesman also said that she opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning and refused to say whether she would support the Democratic challenger against Mayor Bloomberg, whose senior aides are assisting her campaign.