Blue Jean: "Seriously, this whole back stage lobbying thing sticks in my craw. The vast majority of wanna be Senators spend their lives slaving over legislation, raising money, listening to voters, crafting platforms, and campaigning. Even then, most never get elected to the Senate. Caroline makes a few phone calls to her powerful friends, and hey, she's moved to the front of the line."

Welcome to America 2008. The American Revolution never happened. We're the British Empire.

Shalom,

ZWrite

Maloney has been involved in politics since 1982. She is a progressive who has a history of passing legislation that has benefitted families.

She is Co-Chair of the House Caucus on Women's Issues. She was instrumental in passing important legislation to on rape and incest. She has worked for an expansion of the Family and Medical Leave act. She is a strong pro-choice candidate.

http://www.ontheissues.org/NY/Carolyn_Maloney_Abortion.htm

Here is an effective woman leader who has paid her dues.

I have nothing against Caroline Kennedy. I will not even argue that there is some particular experience that one must have in order to be a U.S. Senator. However, I will argue that, if fairness has meaning, it seems odd that Caroline Kennedy should just step into this role on the basis of what is mainly her name when there are far more experienced progressive candidates.

First blogger: "a woman who has proven liberal credentials?"

Even if she has 100 "Liberal credentials," she should be making her argument to the people she wants to represent in a campaign, not one person.

Shalom,

ZWrite

I'm going to be charitable and assume that the author wrote a similar article about Hillary Clinton 8 1/2 years ago. Clinton had as much political experience as Kennedy---which is to say none---and she wasn't even a resident of New York. Kennedy has been involved in important social and political causes her entire adult life and she is a dedicated New Yorker. She also has an impressive education, and the star power and temperament necessary to effectively serve New York. The other candidates the author mentions have merit (except that a couple of them are substantially more conservative than Ms. Kennedy) but we live in the real world, where star power matters.

A note which mentions Hillary Clinton without insulting, belitting, or mocking her or her supporters. It must be Koppelman's day off, huh?

Poster Tinkie Winkie used it. For me, though, "Sweet Caroline" sounds better. I may be older and more idealistic than Tinkie.

from Huffington Post ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-g-yerman/carolyn-maloney-garners-e_b_148630.html

... about Maloney's credentials and endorsements she has gathered.

Twinkie: "Caroline Kennedy went to law school but has never practiced law. She made a tv show about the Bill of Rights, wherein she admitted she had not known that the Bill of Rights was the first ten amendments to the constitution. This is what happens when people get to skip the hard parts because they are related to rich, powerful people. They get to graduate from law school without knowing what the Bill of Rights is, whereas the rest of us have to learn it in the fifth grade."

Is this true? If it is, we're talking Sarah Palin territory here. Caroline Kennedy seems really, really quiet. I didn't construe this as meaning she's dumb, but maybe she is. My guess is that she is way smarter than Palin, but she is still ridiculously unqualified.

I'm waiting for someone to outline what makes her qualified to be a senator -- aside from general comments about her being liberal (not a qualification) and how her name is a positive. What specifically has she done?

And by the way, graduating Harvard doesn't make her smart. When I was a high school senior, my father excitedly told me that a business associate promised him he would get me into Harvard. The associate was an alumnus who decades earlier was a star football player at Harvard, roomed with Ted Kennedy, and told my father something to the effect that he had pull on the Admissions Committee.

I told my father that I didn't belong at Harvard and never applied.

My point is that if someone I never met promised to help ME get into Harvard, you can just imagine how much string-pulling goes on to get someone like Caroline Kennedy or George W. Bush into Harvard.

(One of my best friends from college went to law school with John John and told me he was not bright; now that I think of it, I think I could have met Caroline if I had gone to Harvard; maybe, I could have been a Kennedy).

Shalom,

ZWrite

Senators Bobby Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, for example. Caroline definitely is the national USA choice. Is the rest of the USA just "far-upstate New York?" That is how NYC people think of the rest of us, bless their overpaid, overtaxed hearts.

You New Yorkers, go ahead and decide. If you want a good New York Senator, pick somebody. But if you want a national and international star, pick Caroline.

She has not held a full-time job in years, has not run for even the lowliest office, and has promoted such noncontroversial causes as patriotism, poetry and public service. Yet Caroline Kennedy’s decision to ask Gov. David A. Paterson to appoint her to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate seat suggests that she believes she is as well prepared as anyone to serve as the next senator from New York — and is ready to throw her famously publicity-averse self into the challenge of winning back-to-back elections in 2010 and 2012.

I told you this was going to happen. Please, Salon, get Caroline up into the main line.

Here's the thing about The Secretary of the Interior: Snore! In some other countries the Secretray of the Interior controls the Secret Police, so people care. But in the USA, the Secret Police work for Dick Cheney.

This country has got one royally sick trip with that family. And for the current governator of California a social climbers wet dream.