TIME: Caroline Kennedy's Shaky Quest for Camelot II

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Caroline Kennedy's Shaky Quest for Camelot II
By KAREN TUMULTY
TIME

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For most people, the salient biographical fact about Caroline Kennedy — let alone the reason to seriously consider her candidacy for the Senate — is her last name. Being a Kennedy has not exactly proved to be an obstacle to success over the past century of American life. You would think that someone with the Kennedy political DNA would have a better understanding of her relative head start in life, but thus far, the only thing Caroline Kennedy has established is that she hasn't inherited the Kennedy charisma gene.

Her high-powered team of handlers is making sure she goes through the rituals, lunching with Al Sharpton in Harlem and calling on officials upstate. Behind the scenes, her Uncle Ted is making no secret of his desire to see his niece join him in the Senate and carry on the Camelot legacy. But Caroline's naturally reserved and cautious personality ("bookish," said one who has worked with her) is not an easy fit in a place where politics is a blood sport. Though her uncle Robert once held the very Senate seat that Kennedy now eyes, her own campaign experience has consisted primarily of giving speeches before adulatory audiences, most recently on behalf of Barack Obama. Acquaintances say they find it hard to picture Kennedy putting up with constant badgering by the Manhattan tabs and TV outlets, or immersing herself in the intricacies of the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact.

On policy questions, her answers have run from cautious to vague, except for her declared support for gay marriage. She does not appear to have given much thought to the specifics of what she would try to accomplish once in office — even on education, which presumably is her area of expertise, given the six years she spent as a volunteer raising money for the New York City public school system. In a contentious interview with the New York Times, she refused to engage in one of the hottest education debates of the day, declining to say whether she supported abolishing tenure for teachers and giving them merit pay instead.

Initial reports of Kennedy's interest in elective office — albeit through the route of being appointed to it — focused on her star power and drew comparisons with Hillary Clinton. But the reviews of her unsteady performance since then have critics likening her more to Sarah Palin. Kennedy, 51, never fails to mention her family's history of public service, but she has also had to explain why she failed to even vote in a number of contested elections in recent years, including one for the Senate seat that she now wants. And she is hardly a compelling speaker: according to a count by the British Daily Telegraph, she used the phrase "you know" 142 times in that interview with the New York Times. In a column headlined "Say Goodnight, Caroline," Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News wrote that her audition thus far is becoming "a cringe-inducing experience, as painful to watch as it must be to endure."

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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1869208,00.html