Caroline Kennedy

This has been hard to watch. I’m very fond of Caroline as a public figure, but she has not managed the public roll-out very well.
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Part of the appeal of being appointed the first time as opposed to running may just be a distaste for the sharp elbows needed to make it in a primary, much less a general election. It’s too bad that being able to withstand the vagaries of a campaign is a qualification for public office. That may sound strange, but take Blagojevich for example. Very smooth, very able to say the right thing in public, utterly without value as a public servant – whereas it might be that Kennedy (or some other person) might do an admirable job of managing constituent services and legislating.
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About the only comparison to Sarah Palin that’s apt is not managing her verbal tick unsuited to public speaking. If you read a transcript Caroline knows how to put an actual sentence together that means something. That is not true for Sarah Palin.
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v. good article as usual. It’s just sad that what you write is true.

What Kathy said. I’m very sympathetic toward CK. It seems like her heart’s in the right place, and I suspect I’d like her votes in the Senate (I’m not a New Yorker), but I think she needed to establish herself as a public presence, an advocate before she tried for a Senate seat. She needs to get used to being asked questions, and people need to get used to her.
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As for the comparison to Sarah Palin: Palin’s hallmark is her instinct for mean-spirited demagoguery and playing on resentments, fears and hatred. Even her cheerful Quayle-esque ignorance is overshadowed by the fact that she’s Father Coughlin in (very expensive) drag.

When Caroline Kennedy gets a tough question she’d rather avoid, she comes across to me as absolutely disgusted with the questioner, the question, and the very idea of having to endure it. Makes my skin crawl and I strongly oppose her appointment.

Digby suggests my preferred appointment candidate –the perfect-for-the-job US Representative Carolyn Maloney:
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If I were a New Yorker, I’d be lobbying for Representative Carolyn Maloney to get the slot. She’s been in the congress for 16 years and is an unabashed liberal, feminist woman who has been fighting these battles for decades and knows whereof she speaks. Her recent book is called Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated and it catalogs a list of institutional, political and cultural inequities which are still so embedded in our system that we hardly even know to question them.
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For instance, after 9/11, when the government was putting together its compensation fund, the government was blithely planning to shortchange female victims’ families by hundreds of thousands of dollars because they were using discriminatory projected earnings tables that reflected the wage gap. It took a concerted campaign to persuade the government that the earnings estimates that determined the value of the payout should be gender blind. It wasn’t a matter of conscious discrimination. They just didn’t consider whether it made sense that the family of a woman who made the same salary as a man at the time of her death should be compensated equally. Maloney organized 11 members of the New York delegation to pursue the matter and reverse the policy. (Insurance companies around the country still use those outdated formulas, by the way.)
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And speaking of Wall Street, Maloney compiles some stories about discrimination against women in the financial industry that make your hair stand on end. Morgan Stanley had paid out nearly $100 million in sex discrimination money to many of the top female employees in the past few years. Apparently, as with Sheila Bair and Brooksley Born, the common excuse was that these women just weren’t “team players” — mostly because they weren’t welcome at the strip clubs and golf courses where so many of the deals were made. And they just wouldn’t get with the program when it came to looking the other way at unethical or reckless practices. (The wimmin are always raining on the parade that way.) Maloney thinks that instead of giving tax deductions to companies for their strip club expenses, most citizens would prefer for that families be allowed to deduct their child care expenses — and has introduced legislation to do that.

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Here’s what I wrote (here and at dKos) two weeks ago:
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Talk about “more and better Democrats”…Carolyn Maloney has been with us voting our way in the House at every single opportunity.
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Why would we pass over such a dedicated, quality Democrat such as Carolyn Maloney?
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From voting to de-fund the occupation to voting against the FISA tyranny, from voting against the credit card company-written bankruptcy bill to voting for expanding health coverage, Carolyn Maloney has been on the right side of every issue for the past nine years she’s been elected to represent New York in the Congress. If we’d had ten more of her in the Senate, we’d be out of Iraq by now.
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I don’t work for or volunteer for Carolyn Maloney, but I probably should. I just know that every time I’ve signed a petition online that reached her office, every time I’ve begged “Please please don’t let this happen” in an email, she’s responded with an email or a letter telling me something like “Hey, I did/will do my best. I voiced our position in the debate as loudly as I could, and I voted against my leadership. I just want you to know that we’re on the same side, and that I won’t stop fighting the good fight.”
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Nothing against Ms. Kennedy, but check out the record of Carolyn Maloney, either legislative or electoral, and then wonder why her name has been blacked out by the shiny object-obsessed MSM…

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Digby also notes:

It’s hard to believe, but I didn’t know there was a movement afoot to push Maloney when I wrote this. Here’s an article on the subject from the NY Daily News.

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I know that Carolyn Maloney’s record of standing up against the tide of Kate O’Beirne-ism over the past decade just isn’t as fun for Tweety to croon about as somebody with the name “Kennedy”, but perhaps –and I know I’m guilty of the worst Beltway heresy, here shudder– that attribute shouldn’t matter to us?

@KT,
While I neither know nor care enough to judge whether Ms. Kennedy would make a good Senator, I do find the tone of your article surprising. Actually the word that comes to mind is ‘scathing’ Is there a bit of you personal reaction coming through or is the subject of the article really that clueless?

KT: I read about Mrs Kennedy and saw bits and pieces on tv. She comes across as diffident. The Sharpton lunch episode was bizarre. I don’t know why she wants to be a Senator. I don’t understood how she has such a lackluster public voting record. Does she really to work at getting this job?

PD: I will admit I was completely taken aback by that answer on NY1, as was the host, Dominic Carter. I searched the right adjective, and that’s the one I finally came up with. “Tonedeaf” might have worked, but considering we are in a severe recession, that one seemed more apt.

Preview would be my friend: I searched for the right answer.

Good article, Karen and Happy New Year Everyone!

I think there may have been a “head start” for Kennedys some time ago, but now there just seems to be a hostile backlash.

I think Caroline really just wants to be a public servant. She has more money than she’ll ever spend, her kids are older, and she believes she can make a difference. While she certainly hasn’t been media-savvy, I think there’s a gotcha quality to some of these journalists. As a fellow introvert who also has passionate beliefs, I find her treatment appaling. Just because she’s not slick doesn’t mean she wouldn’t do a good job.

Stuart – I’m not a New Yorker, but Maloney came to mind as a possibility right away. I wish Caroline were doing better, but she’s not, and so I hope Maloney gets this.
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Do we know if she wants to become Senator?

Why don’t we stop using dead tree edition and use memorial tree edition.

It’s not like the tree died on its own and we just found the corpse laying in woods.

slain tree?

rainbow – Happy New Year back at you (and all my fellow swampers). I’ve seldom looked forward to the New Year as much as this. The symbolism of starting over has always worked wonders for my psyche – just as every new September did in school.
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Any plans? I’d love to do First Night in Burlington, but we always seem to get a blast of cold air in time for New Year’s, and I’m too old to enjoy walking around in a wind chill of -10. [Enjoy your current 63 (I just looked it up.) There has to be something to balance out the hurricanes.] I’ll cuddle up with some hot cocoa and try to enjoy the inanity on the teevee.

Why no love for Fran Drecher who also wants the seat? Damn liberal media bias!
And hasn’t Caroline gone by her married name for years? Now suddenly she is “Kennedy” again.

Aaaaagh! Don’t do that to me. I hate the sound of trees being felled. I did a convocation many years ago with an environmentalist who said he asked his (high-minded) vegetarian students “Do you plan to kill that carrot outright, or slowly chew it to death?”

Kathy:

Even New Orleans is getting in on the new start bandwagon. No longer will they drop a gumbo bowl (our ball), but it will be a Fleur de Lis.

My kids have spent all day with their 5 cousins. Tonight my husband is grilling steaks and my aunt and uncle are bringing fireworks.

Found a quote in Barnes and Noble from George Eliot and hung it on my wall: “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” Thought it was beautiful. We all have things about ourselves we’d love to have do-overs, but I’m a firm believer in life offering up second chances. Kathy and everyone else, have a wonderful, blessed new year! Will check back after the new year.

New beginnings encourage me, too.

KT – Halperin just featured your article on the Page

Wow, lots of good comments. stuart writes: “nothing against…” and I think that’s true. There are several good candidates in our state, and fair or not, the determining factor may not be the one who is most deserving, or hardest-working.
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Politico is writing that in light of the Blago/Burris/Rush use of the race card and that there is no black member of the Senate, the situation might mean that David Paterson may appoint….himself. Certainly, there is no glory in being a governor these days, especially in NY, which just had its tax base cut off at the knees. Without the finance industry money (corporate and individual income tax), the state is facing unprecedented deficits in the billions. It will call upon the governor to approve of new and unpopular tax increases, 88 proposed ones including those on soda and music downloads. Who wants the headaches? Paterson may take the easy way out by leaving town and heading for Washington, and leave the tax increases to some other chump.

What I find surprising is that someone in her circle didn’t tell her about the “you knows”. They had to know this would happen.

jose: sgwhite has chastised me for exactly the same thing, after listening to me on the radio, so i’m, you know, sympathetic on that one.

AP is reporting that Paterson may appoint a “caretaker” to fill Hillary’s seat. Someone who wouldn’t be interested in actually running for it in 2010. All the hopefulls could then duke it out by actually running for the office. Would that just foil everyone!

KT
That’s the point, sg told you. Who told Caroline?

We’ve watched a 2 year job interview with Obama, and at least 6-12 mos. for other local and national candidates, allowing us a chance to vet their ideas as well as their ability to address the media and public. These appointments to empty seats eliminate that process, and frankly I’m glad that CK has been hit hard with a compressed effort to see what she’s all about. Reaction to even the rudest or most unfair comments and questions can be a telling way to judge a person’s character, and it seems she’s not scoring so well on that test.

on another note… Happy New Year Swamplanders! Not 8 years of Bush baggage, nor the dire issues we face, will kill my optimism for 2009 – yes I’m livin’ in Obama-la-la land (at least for now), So pop the corks and cheers to all!!

ording to a count by the British Daily Telegraph, she used the phrase “you know” 142 times in that interview with the New York Times
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So were all the “you know”s included in the transcript or Did the telegraph have the audio? And is isn’t still common practice to edit out such verbal tics when creating a print version? Or does that reflect the editor’s opinion of the subject?
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Note that I’m not trying to be snide. I actually want to know.

With even her initial backers now pulling back, I’d say Caroline’s Senate hopes are just about dead.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

PD: NYT put the transcript on their website.
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It is pretty painful to read:
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/nyregion/28kennedytranscript.html

Andrew Cuomo, being a Cuomo, while not a Kennedy, probably only has to work 1.75 x as hard. Math.

I might run. I might start a Foundation. I’m torn.

KT
All is forgiven. I hereby agree that she is not being treated unfairly.

Karen I would have liked you actually interviewing her personally.
I really liked your interview with Hilary.
I like that you ask good questions without being aggressive.
Someone like you might have been able to draw out a different Caroline.

rainbow, liked that quote from George Eliot.
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Happy New Year to the Swampers from whom I have learned so much – and got a few laughs as well! May we have more knowledge and laughs in 2009.

Spitzer.

Re: The transcript of the Ck interview. Ouch. Just ouch. I remember reading the lawschool moot court transcript and the number of times a certain law student who shall remain nameless said, “like” was enough to make a certain law student want to die of embarrassment. A certain law student’s father, who we shall affectionately call “Conan the Grammarian”, said to the law student, “Honey, if anyone ever asks you what languages you are fluent in, I don’t think you should say ‘English’.”
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Again, just ouch.
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I said it at the beginning of this process and I will say it again: What I think happened is that they were looking for a caretaker in order to decide who they really wanted to run in the seat. Eliot Spitzer screwed up what was planned in Democratic Party in NY. It was expected that we would lose Hillary. And Paterson would have been appointed to the Senate. With Spitzer gone, it left a hole in the plan for what would happen. I think the idea of caretaker came up very, very early in the process, and I think that was supposed to be the CK job. I don’t think she ever saw herself in the role longer than 2010. In the meantime, she would be able to raise millions for the Senate race for whoever was going to run, likely Paterson or Cuomo, and also the Governor’s race. While the bench is deep, there’s a real scism between downstate and upstate. If you are known downstate, you are mistrusted upstate, and if you are known upstate, you are unknown downstate, and will have a tougher time getting votes and raising money.
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I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m going to say it again: there are some aspect to this situation from a political analysis point of view that I don’t see being covered, which is a shame, because it’s what makes the whole thing interesting. The LEAST interesting aspect of this story is CK. The MOST interesting aspect of the story is everything else–the fundraising, how it effects the Governor’s race, where do you pick from that could be a safe seat and still raise enough money to run in 2010, 2012, etc. And who does Hillary want? Has anyone asked Paterson if he has consulted Hillary or had any conversation with her about this appointment?
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And last but not least, the idiot from Bollomberg’s office who decided to appoint himself the campaign manager for CK’s non-existent campaign, is in for the hardest political lesson of his life: timing.
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Ouch’s all around.
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I put Mahoney at front runner status at the moment, unless CK publicly states that she will only serve as a caretaker for two years when/if Paterson appoints her.
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Just my thoughts.

For all you Young Turk fans out there they are having a real brawl on the show tonight. Subject is Israel and Hamas.
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http://www.theyoungturks.com/

Happy New Year! Pedal Fast!

Appointing a caretaker is the only right thing for Paterson to do. He wasn’t elected to his own officer, after all. He needs to show some humility and let the people decide.

If Bob Kerrey is named Senator from NY, I will burn all copies of Debra Winger movies I own, go Old School on the New School, and hold my breathe until I pass out.

KT
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I honestly was not trying to “chastise” you about the “you knows” I hope you know that. The problem is just about everybody does it but they don’t realize it unless they hear themselves on tape. People who are on TV a lot or radio a lot are more cognizant of it because they are constantly hearing themselves but “you know” has replaced “uhs” and “uhms”. Just listen to the next athlete give an interview, or coach even. I don’t care how intelligent people percieve them to be if you count their “you knows” it will astonish you. I learned about it in my communications class in college because I thought I was hot sh1t. Imagine my embarrassment when I heard what I thought was a great speech filled not with uhs and uhms but filled to the brim with the “you knows”. I tell you what even listen to the guests on a lot of the talking head shows. All of those print media guys who normally have their stuff in a news paper or magazine will say “you know” over and over again.
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Hell the funniest thing about the transcript is on both CNN and MSNBC when I saw them report on it, both times the person that was anchoring actually kept saying “you know” when they were talking about it. I was like “Yeah yall are the ones to talk”.

Pain. I would rather feet it than nothing at all.

I think I have pain in my foot.

gunny-as 2008 draws to a close. Remember what we once stood for.
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Thanks gunny. That made me believe again.

You are certainly welcome.

KT and all other frequent Swamplanders (even you textee)
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Happy New Years to all and to all a good night!

There’s a fake Prince on my teeeve.

Okay so I got tired of waiting for the High Sheriffs to fix the platforming issues. I’ve been lurking about y’all for quite awhile (did the same thing on The Nation blogs too) but now it’s time to jump in with both feet.
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(Gonna see if I can make the paragraph breaks right. If not forgive my noobness
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I don’t really have a huge opinion regarding the appointment of Caroline Kennedy to Hillary’s old seat mostly because it’s really only up to the governor to make that call. Do I think she’d serve adequately? Not too much doubt, one factor that no one seems to have mentioned yet is that she is much more than her family name. She has a HUGE amount of long seasoned politicians in all stripes to back her up if she feels like she’s getting in over her head. The people of New York could do worse, even if she is just a placeholder until 2010.
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Not gonna tell drunk Marine jokes…not gonna tell drunk Marine jokes…

Happy New Year, all.
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With all due respect, yutsano, why should we be resigned to “The people of New York could do worse”? Sure, we could always do worse, but can’t we at least ask, prior o the pick being made, how much better we could do? I understand why the Kennedys desperately want a national-profile political representative after Teddy departs the stage, but why should I care about that?
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CK would be a terrible pick. Not only substantively, since she is clearly unqualified (sorry, being able to put a reasonably coherent sentence together does NOT qualify you to be a competent Senator). But it is just an insult to our political system that we have this political nepotism foisted on us, time and again. Even appointing Bill CLinton as a placeholder would rub me he wrong way.
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And I am so sick of these ambitious wankers referring to being a Senator as “public service”. Please. You are being appointed to one of the most powerful positions on the planet. That’s not working in a soup kitchen.

sqr1: With all due respect to you, you have got the wrong idea of what Senator means. It is indeed “public service.” From the founding of our country, Congressional posts were meant for people from all walks of life representing the people for a brief period of time, bringing their life experience with them. The idea of a lifetime politician, in which it is viewed as a profession is a modern concept. And not necessarily a good one.
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CK would not be a terrible pick; she would be an excellent one. Outside of her family’s legacy ambitions, she as a person is well-suited to the job. In fact, there are few in our state who can match her breadth of experience combined with her Rolodex of power players. And she’s smart too.
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You may resent her birthright and mock her verbal tics, but if those are the extent of your objections, they’re minor to my mind. Recent polls suggest that she has a plurality, if not a majority, of the public’s support. Count me among those in her column.

With all due respect to you, nibbly, you have your history wrong. The Senate has ALWAYS been a bastion of elitism. Sure, the Founders never it intended to be a repository of sociopathic nitwits. But a body of “the people”? Not even close. The Senate was created as an upper house of Congress akin to the English House of Lords. Senators weren’t even directly elected until 1913. And the six-year terms might not have mandated a career as a politician, but they didn’t discourage it either. All that, plus the fact that each state only has two, makes the position quite prestigious. It is hardly a burden and anyone who acts like Senators are “giving back” by deigning to hold the post are full of s–t.
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As for CK, I don’t have “objections” to her. It is not for me to find reasons to find fault with her. It is for her to demonstrate that she is the most qualified to represent me and the other 20 million people who live here. A rather tall burden for anyone. And one she CLEARLY fails to meet.
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If the best you can come up with is that she has big rolodex and that she’s “smart too”, I’m not buying it.
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A “Rolodex of power players” is a bug not a feature in a Senate candidate. I have little concern that any Senator of my state will have difficulty getting their calls returned from anyone. A real concern is that such a Senator would view the names on the Rolodex as her real constituents.
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Finally, as for her “breadth of experience,” let’s cut the cr-p. If Kennedy wasn’t her last name, CK wouldn’t be a passing aferthought in anyone’s mind.
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I say that even though she probably shares more of my own political views than anyone else likely to be tapped for the post (or elected in 2010). She is well-educated and by all accounts perfectly nice person. I’m sure that I would love to discuss issues with her at a dinner party. But she hasn’t even distinguished herself in her own profession of law.

Yes, if she were not who she is, then we would be thinking of her differently. Funnily enough, she is who she is. She’s Caroline Kennedy. And despite that you think anyone in the role would “get their calls returned”, to think that her stature is interchangeable with anyone’s, let say Anthony Weiner, is absurd.
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The Senate was not created as akin to the Upper House of Lords. It was created to balance the power of small states to more populous ones, which had more reps in the House and therefore more votes. Now we can debate as the founding fathers did about republicanism or representative democracy, but if you know your history, most of those who served in the early days had other occupations than “politician” and often went back to them once their terms were up.
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You may feel that CK fails to meet your standard of qualifications; I don’t. I look at the alternatives, and she’s right up there. If you prefer Andrew Cuomo or Sheldon Silver or Kristen Gillibrand, then fine. That’s your preference. As I mentioned before, more of our state’s citizens seem to agree that Caroline is theirs.

As I mentioned before, more of our state’s citizens seem to agree that Caroline is theirs.
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Any data on that? I’ve seen polls that show a slight majority of respondents agreeing that she’s qualified, but that’s not the same as saying she’s the most qualified candidate.
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If any Democrat could lose the seat in 2010, it’s probably Caroline Kennedy. She’s just a bad politician. And she needs to be more polite with the media – her rudeness is probably responsible for much of the negative media coverage. The combination of her incredibly vague policy statements and her disdain of innocuous questions is very unappealing. The only substantive thing she’s said is that she’s for gay marriage, yet she ridiculed a reporter who asked her to describe the moment she decided to try for the Senate seat, saying that she thought they were supposed to be tough political reporters and not writers for a women’s magazine. Well, if you’re not going to be substantive you can’t be upset with soft questions. Also those women’s magazines can be powerful tools in an election. The Obamas used them in the GE.
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She may be a decent Senator, although it’s hard to say considering she has little record and she’s said almost nothing substantive. She is clearly intelligent and well-connected. But there is no reason to think she’s the most likely candidate to be an excellent Senator, or even the most electable candidate.

rose: Fair question, and your impression is fair too. She’s certainly got some ways to go to become media savvy.
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This is the latest poll that I was thinking of:
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/poll_caroline_kennedy_the_favo.php
Now you can say it’s all about name recognition rather than voters’ assessment of who is the MOST qualified. However, the reality of the state is that name recognition counts, because the state is so big and diverse. There is a huge upstate/downstate divide. And for better or worse, the timing of the election is that the candidate has to start running immediately, raising money and their profile.
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In the last few weeks, Peter King, the LI Repub, has been all over the airwaves insulting CK’s qualifications. If anything, it made me more supportive of her. He wants to run in 2010 and he’s scared to death of her. He wouldn’t be against someone like Carolyn Maloney, fine prospect that she is.

On the other hand, the poll isn’t all good news for her: Only 40% of respondents said she is qualified to be a U.S. Senator, with 41% saying she is not. And Andrew Cuomo has a better favorable-unfavorable rating of 55%-11%, compared to Kennedy’s 46%-17%.

I get the feeling that no matter what happens no one is going to be happy. This of course gives a demoralized Republican party a chance to recover at least a touch of their old swagger.

Would that **EVERY** potential junior senator from all 50 states received this amount of scrutiny from the Beltway cocktail party circuit. Maybe Tennessee wouldn’t have got stuck with Bob “job killer” Corker.

As it is, I fail to understand why the media villagers think the rest of us in America give a crap about who represents New York in the U.S. Senate. As long as it doesn’t change the balance of power in the Senate, and it won’t, it affects me not one bit who New York’s junior Senator is.

I think you guys are way overworking this story and need a little perspective …