The U.S. Senate: A Kennedy stakes her claim

Caroline Kennedy had always seemed more the daughter of her publicity-shy mother than of her glad-handing father, said Mike Lupica in the New York Daily News. Not anymore. This week, the 51-year-old daughter of John and Jacqueline Kennedy declared her interest in the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton. That would be the same seat once occupied by her uncle Robert Kennedy, and she would be joining the Senate as her other uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy, battles brain cancer. No wonder many Democrats are thrilled. Kennedy has been an advocate for New York City schools, but “has never run for anything.” Then again, this isn’t exactly running. The power to fill the slot rests with Gov. David Paterson, who’s also being lobbied by Andrew Cuomo, the state attorney general and son of Mario Cuomo. Andrew, it should be noted, went through “a messy divorce” with a Kennedy cousin. In short, this could be one of America’s “great political soap operas.”

Pardon me if I’m not cheering, said Glenn Greenwald in the Chicago Sun-Times. Haven’t we learned by now that “political family dynasties are bad for democracy”? And I’m not just talking about Bushes. In the Senate, no fewer than 15 members joined the club after “close relatives previously held their seat or similar high office.” The very notion of some kind of hereditary claim on power “diminishes the role of merit in how elected leaders are chosen” and has helped fuel a Beltway culture that’s “insular, incestuous, unaccountable, and bloated.” Caroline Kennedy seems to be a smart and serious woman. But in a representative democracy, the circumstances of one’s birth should not guarantee a path to political power.

It’s no use resisting the Camelot myth, said Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post. Caroline’s father and brother both died too young, leaving Caroline “our tragic national princess.” Watching her now claim the seat once held by her assassinated uncle would be a “fitting coda to this modern fairy tale.” Caroline’s Senate quest definitely conjures “sword-in-the-stone connotations,” said Chris Smith in New York. But as an author and public-interest activist, she has always managed to stay above the political fray. “There’d be something sad about seeing her subjected to the grubby gossiping and money hustling” the job entails. In gaining her as a senator, “we’d be losing an icon.”

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