Senator Caroline Kennedy?

So Caroline Kennedy wants to be considered for the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton as she's been tapped by Barack Obama for the role in his Cabinet to serve as Secretary of State. I don't really know what to make of this idea. It's not that I bear any feeling one way or the other towards Caroline Kennedy. It's that she's never held any public office. Granted, with her family history, I completely understand why she would want to stay out of the limelight. I mean, do I really have to go into the details? Her father was JFK. Enough said. But let's take a minute to examine her qualifications. Caroline Kennedy is 51 years old. She's a lawyer, writer and has co-authored two books on civil liberties and edited several books of poetry. She currently serves as one of two vice chairs of a public-private partnership dedicated to raising private funding for New York City's public school system. She's also a member of the Washington D.C and New York Bar Associations, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Commission on Presidential Debates. This is just a brief and incomplete listing of Kennedy's professional life. Of course, if her name was Caroline Rogers and this was her resume, she would not be at all considered as a potential Senate candidate. But she is a Kennedy. There are some...advantages that she could bring to the Senate if Governor Paterson should appoint her to the Senate seat. One is her name and the celebrity that comes with it. Anything she says will draw attention. If she uses that celebrity for causes that she's passionate about, then she could be a leading voice in fighting for those causes. Just off her professional record, I think it's apparent that education is one of those causes that could benefit if she's named to to the Senate. Another would be civil liberties. She could fight in the Senate as a defender of civil liberties. Here's something else that I don't really think has gotten much press coverage. Caroline Kennedy was one of the first high profile voices to endorse Senator (now President-elect) Barack Obama in his run for the presidency. Now that Obama has been elected, if Kennedy is appointed, New York will have a senator who's very close to the new president, who was an early supporter of his candidacy. That could help bring a lot of federal dollars into the state's coffers. Plus she seems to be personally popular and if she should run for reelection to the Senate, money shouldn't be a problem. Yes she has no elective experience but New York seems to go for people that have big name appeal. Hillary Clinton, John Foster Dulles, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and her uncle Robert Kennedy. She does seem to have some judgment, considering she backed the eventual winner of the 2008 election. I obviously don't know if she will be named to the post but I personally would like to see her get a chance to prove herself. Besides, the Governor will only appoint her to finish out the remainder of Clinton's term. There's an election in 2010 and another in 2012 for a full six year term. She would have to go through two consecutive elections before she would have a full term in the Senate. There would be more than enough opportunities to get rid of her if she should prove to be incompetent or incapable of ably serving the people of New York. For whatever it's worth, I say give her a chance. She's been criticized by other potential candidates because she has no record and is only running because of her name. My answer to that is if the situation were reversed and some other candidate had the Kennedy name and not her, they would be behaving the exact same way she has been. You can't hold it against her for using very advantage she has to try to get the seat. From what I've read she's been acting very carefully and trying not to infringe on the Governor's right to name whoever he wants to the seat. Yes she's a neophyte. In an interview, she said that she was inspired by Obama to run for public office. If she should not be named, I do think she'll find a way to enter public office. I think that Caroline Kennedy would serve with distinction if she should b appointed to the U.S.Senate.