Sweet Caroline
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 05:29AM Caroline Kennedy's candidacy is going to be great political theater over the next few weeks.
It's fascinating to see how quickly she's emerged as the front-runner to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. At this point, there seems to be two candidates: Caroline and not-Caroline.
She has some prominent supporters, like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who all but endorsed her yesterday, and Mayor Bloomberg. Even Hillary has gone out of her way to make it known that she's not part of the "stop Caroline" crowd.
But the long knives are out, too. Congressman Ackerman took a cheap shot the other day, as did Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers (and someone you'd think would be an ally, given Caroline's work on education reform).
The strongest resistance seems to be coming from upstate New York, where they're less impressed with her star power and Manhattan social status. And so Caroline is wisely embarking on a Hillary-esque "listening tour" in places like Buffalo and Rochester over the next few days to make nice with the locals.
All of this chatter about Caroline is actually good news for Patterson. In a way, Caroline will have to go through a mini-primary over the next few weeks -- one that Patterson can watch closely before making a decision.
Smart money says that he wants to select Caroline -- her fund raising prowess, name recognition, and pure star power will be good for his re-elect bid in 2010. But at the same time, he surely wants to see if she can take a hit or two -- from both fellow Democrats and the New York tabloid media -- and keep on trucking. It's impossible to succeed in the New York arena without having a strong backbone and a good counter-punch -- something Caroline Kennedy has never needed to exhibit in public. Patterson has a few weeks to see her in action.
Reader Comments (2)
You must have been reading my mind...I was just wondering what you would say about Caroline's candidacy. Now that she's in the spotlight, it should be interesting to see how this all plays out in the media (esp tabloids as u noted).
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