Judith Warner: Getting Beyond Camelot
Caroline Kennedy is, by all accounts, a smart, decent and very capable woman. There is no reason why she shouldn’t enter politics and why she couldn’t have a good shot at winning an election.
That doesn’t mean she should be handed Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacated United States Senate seat.
Running for office and getting a high-class government handout are two very different things.
I suppose Caroline can’t be blamed entirely for having a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the fine line between deserving accomplishment and political entitlement. In 1960, when her father was elected president, vacating his seat in the Senate, he wanted his brother, Ted, to take his place. But Ted was too young to serve. So the Kennedy camp convinced Foster Furcolo, the Massachusetts governor, to appoint Benjamin Smith, an old college friend of Jack’s, “to keep the seat warm” until Ted turned 30 and could run in 1962.
“I’m putting someone in. I want to save that seat for my brother,” Jack openly said, according to Adam Clymer’s “Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography.”
But J.F.K. did sometimes worry, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told me this week, that the public might sour on the idea of a Kennedy family dynasty.
The early 1960s were more indulgent times. In 2008, however, I’m not sure we can afford to extend excessive amounts of public generosity to the wealthy and well-connected. It doesn’t strike me as desirable or — for New York Democrats in particular, and even for Caroline herself — very wise....
Read entire article at NYT
That doesn’t mean she should be handed Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacated United States Senate seat.
Running for office and getting a high-class government handout are two very different things.
I suppose Caroline can’t be blamed entirely for having a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the fine line between deserving accomplishment and political entitlement. In 1960, when her father was elected president, vacating his seat in the Senate, he wanted his brother, Ted, to take his place. But Ted was too young to serve. So the Kennedy camp convinced Foster Furcolo, the Massachusetts governor, to appoint Benjamin Smith, an old college friend of Jack’s, “to keep the seat warm” until Ted turned 30 and could run in 1962.
“I’m putting someone in. I want to save that seat for my brother,” Jack openly said, according to Adam Clymer’s “Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography.”
But J.F.K. did sometimes worry, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told me this week, that the public might sour on the idea of a Kennedy family dynasty.
The early 1960s were more indulgent times. In 2008, however, I’m not sure we can afford to extend excessive amounts of public generosity to the wealthy and well-connected. It doesn’t strike me as desirable or — for New York Democrats in particular, and even for Caroline herself — very wise....