THE POLITICAL ANIMAL

Okay, I admit it. The title of this article was probably a bit much. Still, it got your attention, didn’t it?

Since I’d already done two articles on Caroline Kennedy and her Palinesque Senate bid in one week, I was going to lay off her for awhile. But my good friend and fellow Today.com blogger Skwguitar brought a recent story about Kennedy to my attention yesterday. It appears our little American princess has decided not to run for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s seat if she’s not appointed to it by Gov. David Paterson. 

Here’s what Yahoo! News has to say about the matter.

“Caroline Kennedy, who is likely to replace Hillary Clinton as New York Senator, has said that she finally spoke to the Secretary of State-designate — who didn’t initially take her call, adding that if she is not selected, she won’t run for the seat.”

“We did have a very nice, you know, conversation, and obviously I’m not gonna talk about that, except to say that she said this was the greatest job that she’d ever had and could imagine having,” quoth the princess.

“So, she was very encouraging, and that was, you know, that was nice because she’s a huge inspiration of mine.”

Then the kicker came when Kennedy was asked if she would run for the seat in 2010 if the governor did not appoint her.

“Well, if he doesn’t select me, I would support the person that he does select.”

That’s an odd thing for Ms. Kennedy to say, given these previous statements from the Senate hopeful.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I would be the best.”

“I’m not a conventional choice. I haven’t followed the traditional path, but I do think I’d bring a kind of a lifetime of experience that is relevant to this job.”

“This is not about me, this is about what I can do to help New York get its fair share, help working families, travel the state, bring attention to what is going on up there. So that’s why I think I would be good.”

You know, for awhile I thought Princess Caroline actually believed the sugar-coated tripe she was dishing out, even if she doesn’t deserve the post. Now it’s pretty clear that all she really wants is to leave behind some “Kennedy legacy” of her own. Any person who was as dedicated to serving in the Senate as Kennedy claims to be – and who had as much money as she does – would jump at the opportunity to run for the seat in two years. Apparently, our little princess doesn’t want the seat if it means she has to actually work for it. I’d heard that a lot of rich people were lazy, but this really takes the cake. Say what you want about George W. Bush, at least the guy never shied from a tough campaign.

To be fair, I should note here that it’s also possible Kennedy is refusing to run in 2010 because she knows she’s not qualified for the job and would most likely be defeated in a legitimate election against an opponent with relevant experience. If that’s the case, why appoint her now?

While surfing the internet yesterday, I came across this comment from a blogger.

“I have no doubt her reason for saying this is because she doesn’t want to enter a race where she’s not a fairly heavy favorite — but it can at least plausibly be spun as an exercise in party loyalty.”

The blogger must be talking about the same party loyalty that made Princess Caroline skip numerous elections in her own state and refuse to say whether she would back the Democratic candidate in next year’s mayoral election in New York City until after she was hit with a tidal wave of criticism from the media and members of her own party.

Geraldine Ferraro is right: Because of the current crises that face our nation today, the Senate needs an experienced person who can hit the ground running. I don’t know who that person is, but I’m pretty sure his or her name is not Caroline Kennedy.

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