Speaking Of Kennedys
Scott LeHigh, though he scribbles on Morrissey Boulevard where they are inclined to be Kennedy lickspittles, has a pretty good one today on why Caroline should not be a U.S. Senator. No, it isn’t the “We need another Kennedy in office like we need a hole in the head” that I would write. It’s a more reasoned look at personality, temperament and experience … and the fact that the current crop has come up short in that department. Boston Globe:
Those who know Kennedy say she is pleasant and unpretentious. Certainly she has displayed none of the off-putting behavior that has characterized some other members of the so-called third generation of Kennedys. A lawyer and author, she has done some valuable fund-raising work for the New York City schools.
But that hardly means she deserves to be eased into a US Senate seat.
Indeed, a consideration of some of the very characteristics that have made Ted Kennedy such a force in the Senate suggests his niece would be far less likely to succeed there.
Senator Kennedy is a big, magnetic personality, gregarious and funny, so solicitous of other senators that he’s been known to show up at small birthday parties for GOP colleagues - and laugh good-naturedly about how they use him as a bugbear to raise money from conservatives. No surprise, then, that even some Republicans who disagree with him on most everything nevertheless value him as a friend.
Hillary Clinton displayed some of those same traits during her time in the Senate, using her interpersonal skills to impress colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
Caroline Kennedy, however, is not a people person. She’s intensely protective of her privacy, so much so that, according to a Washington Post report, friends are reluctant even to be mentioned in articles about her for fear of being frozen out. To those who don’t know her, she comes off as distant and reserved.
“She’s very quiet and shy,” says one family friend. “I think she is a good person and a smart person, but I just don’t know if she would make a good senator.”
While Ted Kennedy took naturally to political life, Caroline Kennedy hadn’t, at least until her appearances for Barack Obama this year. An indifferent speaker, she has never been much involved in the public fray.
“Yes, she would bring important media attention to any issue she chose, but she is simply not someone who has ever played a significant role in any of the big policy debates,” notes a second Kennedy acquaintance.
Meanwhile, we’ve already seen that political talent isn’t necessarily a trait that has taken deep root among the third generation. Temperamental and rambunctious, Joe Kennedy II proved a poor fit for public life, essentially fouling out of the 1998 race for governor. Likable but lightly informed Max Kennedy stumbled before he was even off the starting block for a planned 2001 congressional run. And in Maryland, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend lost her 2002 gubernatorial bid.
Further, the idea that Kennedy is a logical choice because women want a high-profile champion is a curious one. Despite her fund-raising work, Caroline is someone famous not because of what she’s done but because of who she is. If she’s appointed to the Senate, her selection wouldn’t be based on the merits but on her name.
All very true. People ask me when I go down south, “What’s with y’all and those Kennedys?” I try to explain things like, deadly youthful indiscretion and socialist impulses aside, Ted’s a nice guy who works it. And people up here are soft on Kennedys. Soft as eggs on Kennedys, the truncated political careers of Joe and Max notwithstanding. The fact is, America needs another Kennedy like it needs a hole in the head. Arguably poor choice of popular idiom unintentional, and nothing meant by that. Anyway, Scott has a great, ironic line in closing. I’m sure the historic irony of thusly closing a piece in which he lavishes Ted K with such praise is unintentional, nothing meant by it:
… a US Senate seat is one of the most important posts in the federal government. It is not a barony to be awarded as a political perk to the lightly experienced scion of a famous family.
If only it were so.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:11 am on Wednesday, December 10, 2008
One Response to “Speaking Of Kennedys”
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December 10th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
‘No, it isn’t the “We need another Kennedy in office like we need a hole in the head” that I would write. ‘
Jules, given the manner in which JFK died, would you be willing to edit that?