Caroline Kennedy will forever be in the hearts of anyone my age and older for the touching images of her and her father and the lasting images of her and little John at their father’s funeral.
As far as I can tell that’s just about all she has in the way of qualifications to be a Senator. Okay, she lives in New York and is the right age but aside from those two qualifications simply being a Kennedy is not enough.
The Bush family is filled with bright people and look what we got with the current President.
Where I draw the line with Republicans is with the concept that those who were against Governor Sarah Palin but are for Caroline Kennedy owe Palin an apology. That concept misses the point entirely. It’s amazing to me how reliably some Republicans manage to see Palin through heavily tinted rose-colored glasses.
Everything they see in her others see 180 degrees in the other direction. Someone has to figure out why we see this woman so differently. What supporters see as honest and genuine, people like me, see as insulting and contrived.
Caroline Kennedy, as far as I can tell at this point, does not impress me as being qualified to be a Senator from New York. I think she’d be better off running for the House first and then taking a run at the Senate. However, I think she realizes that if she waits, that opportunity may not be there for her later. The difference between Kennedy and Palin has, in my view, almost nothing to do with their experience. It has everything to do with stated commentary.
With Kennedy we currently have nothing to go on. She simply has not allowed any access yet. With Palin what we saw was continually at odds with what she was saying and doing. Much of it didn’t even pass for common sense. Her comment about having foreign policy experience because Alaska borders Russia was total nonsense. Her invoking phrases like “hockey mom” and “Joe six-pack” came off as pandering. It wasn’t just the terms but the way she enunciated them that came off as fake. She’d pick up any talking point like it was hammer regardless of its origin and just flail away with it.
The final straw for me was the situation regarding her clothes. Why was this a big deal? I’ll tell you why. Here was someone who specifically chose to stand on a platform and shouted loudly for all to hear that she had a record of always being against excess in government. She identified her main strength against excess as being her down-home attitude—that she was an everyday basic person like you and me. We didn’t tag her with that moniker. She brought that grouping to the party and wielded it like a weapon. She then totally destroyed the entire effort, in the minds of people like me, by willingly and happily jumping at the chance to wear all those extravagant outfits and accepting all the perks. Watching her youngest daughter waltz around with a $4,000 purse stood in stark contrast to the stated disdain for excess. It exposed her for what I believe her to be—a charlatan.
Caroline Kennedy may very well turn out to be the same. However, at this point she simply hasn’t given us enough to go on. The only people who would owe Palin an apology are those who only marked experience as their criteria. I know very few who fall into this category. Most of us that don’t support her do so for far more than just the experience aspect.
The jury is still out on Kennedy at this point. If this is all we get then she should not be handed the Senate seat. For me, that would be one minor step short of what is alleged to have been going on in Illinois.
