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Gambling on Caroline Kennedy
New York's governor will take a huge political risk if he hands a Senate seat to the Camelot heiress.
Astute observers of Empire State politics may be taking cruel delight in the delicious irony surrounding Governor David Patterson, currently perched on the horns of a dilemma created in large measure by his own party.
He remains besieged by seemingly indefatigable forces pushing him to place Kennedy heiress Sweet Caroline in Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat.
A recent Rasmussen poll, however, indicates that while a significant majority of voters like the lady well enough, fewer than four in ten feel she is qualified for a seat in the upper chamber. The gallows humor in this tale is found in Paterson’s Albany history and the very different future he and his cronies had envisioned for him.
Our story, as later revealed by Irene Liu and other Albany reporters, begins in the spring of 2006, when Eliot Spitzer and the New York Democratic Party found themselves in a bit of a bind. The Sheriff of Wall Street was a solid contender for the governor’s mansion, but he hailed from the affluent side of the tracks and was several shades too white for his party’s diversity minded handlers. Paterson, being both African-American and legally blind, was exactly what the ticket needed. The problem was that David held the Senate minority leader position and was a rising star in his own right. He had little interest in being lieutenant governor, a position often viewed as a political dead end in New York. Clearly, some sort of “understanding” would be required.
The salve for that particular wound came in the form of Hillary Clinton. It was no secret that she had been planning a run at the White House and the prevailing wisdom indicated she had a fairly good shot at it. Albany insiders tell us that Paterson was to be given head of the line privileges for the Senate appointment if he would fill up Spitzer’s dance card in the governor’s race. Spitzer himself was already being mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, particularly by those hungry for a return to Rockefeller-era New York political hegemony. But with the frisky governor’s fall from grace, Paterson finds himself in nearly the exact opposite position. He sits in an embattled governor’s seat, tainted with the scent of his predecessor and hardly a sure bet for reelection, while facing the task of appointing someone else to the plumb position who will prove a far harder sell than he would have been.
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Jazz Shaw is a heretical, Northeastern former RINO and regular columnist at The Moderate Voice. He can be reached at jazzshaw@gmail.com.
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35 Comments
1. Typewriter King:New York voters will go for someone they perceive as unqualified if they follow the right party line. They just did for the highest office, and they’ll do it again with a lower office.
I see little room for glee from conservatives/libertarians out of a few scandals. Spitzer would win reelection if appointed, if promised a few jobs programs of some sort.
I’ve been trawling around for opinions, and you know what the most startling thing I discovered was? After the Wall Street and auto bailouts, with more heavy industry bailouts coming, habitual Democratic voters still smugly assert that tax money from “blue states” are propping up Republican-leaning states disproportionately, and Middle America is the place that full of ingrates leeching off their hard work!
With all due respect toward Paterson’s disability, they’re blind to fiscal sanity, shaped by an ingrained innumeracy.
New Yorkers aren’t going to abandon the Democratic Party, at least not to go Republican or Conservative. They see the Democrats as the true adults!
Adults that, though they held majorities for the congress with a single digit approval rating, won re-election in greater numbers, going even so far as to re-elect those that had directly insulted their constituents in the worst ways.
Why would any reasonable person, upon seeing current trends, honestly expect a little dynasty-building to be the last straw?
P.S. Blagojevich would probably win re-election in Illinois if given the chance.
Dec 21, 2008 - 1:56 am 2. canuck:The writer also seems to forget Sweet Caroline’s ex-relative Andrew Coumo, who wants the job so badly he can taste it. This of course creates a lovely ex-family feud. He is another Dem who feels entitled to the position and of course the threat here is that he will run against Patterson is the next election cycle if he is not effectively removed from the picture.
If Rudy were to announce he plans to run in the next election cycle (even if this is just a head fake) either for governor or for the Senate seat, he could really throw the Dems into a total panic. Maybe he could just state he is interested in returning to “Public Life” without stating which position he plans to contest, Governor or Senate seat. We could really have fun watching then.
Dec 21, 2008 - 4:25 am 3. formwiz:Things, of course, wouldn’t be different if Princess Caroline ran as Mrs. Kennedy Schlossberg, as she’s called herself for many a moon, rather than Ms. Kennedy. The real world eventually doesn’t care about maiden names or husbands, for that matter. Witness her cousin Kathleen’s brief fling into Maryland politics, or the sitting senator’s presidential run. Then there’s her own one real scintilla of a track record: the selection of Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate.
If this is the era of the well-connected, but totally unprepared and unqualified, office holder whose only claim to the post is entitlement by reason of diversity, family, and fund raising potential, it will last only as long as it takes for things to get much worse, thanks to the officeholders’ ineptitude. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton will soon be the benchmark by which the country should not select its leaders.
Dec 21, 2008 - 4:38 am 4. CARROLLREDD:WHY SHOULD ANYTHING THAT GOES ON IN WASHINGTON SUPRISE YOU AS THE SAME GROUP HAS BEEN RUNNING IT FOR YEARS AND NOW THE WOMEN ARE TAKING THIER TURN AS THEY HAVE BEEN IN THE BACK GROUND AND THEY PUT THIER FOOT DOWN AND SAID IT IS THIER TIME.PELOSI,CLINTON AND KENNEDY ARE GOING TO RULE IN WASHINGTON FOR AWHILE,SO GET USE TO IT.AS FOR OBAMA LETTING THAT SO CALLED PREACHER SPEAK, WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU EXPECT?IF IT WOULDNT CREATE A UPROAR, HIS WHOLE STAFF WOULD BE BLACK OR MUSLIMS YOU GOT HIM IN, SO LIVE WITH IT AS THIS COUNTRY COMES CRASHING DOWN
Dec 21, 2008 - 4:44 am 5. Disgusted:What’s the matter with you people……She is a Kennedy, which means she can absolutely do nothing wrong. She is entitled to this senate seat by her name alone. After all, just look at history, What was Hillary’s experience to hold the same seat, and how about the TOTAL LACK OF EXPERIENCE for our current President Elect…….and while we’re at it, she probably has more experience than at least 50 % of our current senate and house members.
Dec 21, 2008 - 7:16 am 6. Войска ПВО:It is supremely amazing how the media, pundits, Hollywood, that cabal of cretins on th Left — and even Powell — howl at Palin’s lack of gravitas and yet fawn over this debutante carpet-bagger. Truly our elected officials are becoming an anointed ruling class, no less odious than the courts of George III and Louis Auguste/Marie Antoinette.
“Let them eat cake..”
Dec 21, 2008 - 8:31 am 7. Tom Durfey:Caroline Kennedy is to New York as Sarah Palin is to Alaska. Caroline’s foreign affairs expertise is that she can see the United Nations from the roof of her Park Ave. apartment.
Dec 21, 2008 - 8:33 am 8. Bill Perron:The Kennedys are anointed and blest by a Higher Power, they know more than everyone else, they are better than everyone else, they are entitled to lead our people. Now please stop speculating on what qualifies a Kennedy or anyone else to be in a public office, next thing some will start demanding voters take an intelligence test before being allowed to vote. Just because New York is in debt many billions and run by Demoncrats is no reason to draw any conclusions, and they same goes for California. Just pay your taxes, shut up and let our betters alone, they should not have to suffer your always watching every move they make. Remember you are their subjects, people, know your place!!!
Dec 21, 2008 - 8:34 am 9. Rashputin:I hope she has an heir who can take over from her. I’d hate to think that the family seat might go to another Arkansas hillbilly with connections.
At least Hussein Obama has a wife and two daughters, that’s twenty-four years of having an appropriate heir for the throne. Gawd, I hope one of those girls has a child while she’s young or we might end up without the annointed one having an appropriate heir for his office twenty-four years from now.
Silly me, so much can happen in twenty-four years, you know? Like going from Ronnie to Hussein. Why even worry about it until 2028!
have a nice day
Dec 21, 2008 - 8:43 am 10. Tex Taylor:Typewriter King in #1 just posted an excellent comment. Don’t know how I could add anything more except to say this:
What more can be said about how morally bankrupt and predictable the current Democrat party has become? I don’t see they could do appoint anyone that would shock; that is, unless they were to actually nominate somebody that didn’t parrot the party line of pro-choice, anti-Bush, government solution to any problem.
Caroline Kennedy is the perfect candidate to fit the new political messiah’s bill. What surprises me is that the accused rapist William Kennedy Smith and the murdering cousin Michael Skakel aren’t congressman yet.
Dec 21, 2008 - 10:08 am 11. Fantom:Cripes.. kennedys.. they are like cockroaches. You never can get rid of them.
Dec 21, 2008 - 10:09 am 12. Jazz:“yet fawn over this debutante carpet-bagger”
Actually, Hillary was the carpetbagger. I haven’t much good to say about Caroline as the recipient of a Senate appointment, but she has lived here for more than four decades, so by now I think she’s earned the right to claim the title of state resident. Just FYI…
Dec 21, 2008 - 10:26 am 13. keithacita:another kennedy trying to get on the public dole. why do we pay for ted kennedy’s medical insurance? he can’t afford it? how about an asset test for these people as well as drug testing.
Dec 21, 2008 - 10:51 am 14. cedarford:What was Hillary’s experience to hold the same seat, and how about the TOTAL LACK OF EXPERIENCE for our current President Elect…….and while we’re at it, she probably has more experience than at least 50 % of our current senate and house members.
Republicans sorta lost the “experience argument” when they rejected Rudy and Romney who had a decade or more of solid, sucessful executive experience and picked McCain, who had 1 year of exec experience in his 72 years, as a commander of a training Naval airwing.
They compounded that when the Right Wing, evangelical segment went bonkers for the woman who had been mayor of a town of 5,000, then on a commission for 1 month, then governor of a small population state for 1 1/2years. Who lacked the fundamental knowledge of the country to get through an interview without handlers…but delivered the right attack slogans, was “right in her heart if not mind”, and practiced what she preached on Right to Life…
Like him or not, Obama managed his campaign as masterfully as Reagan did his, or Clinton did in 1992. He did it all within the organization he, Axelrod, Plouffe built – with no reliance on unions or other hoary special interest groups proxied to do the work. Meanwhile, the lack of executive fitness and ability to lead was on open display with McCain, Hillary as their campaigns imploded. (Hillary’s 11th hour revival was too late. And the more voters saw of Mccain the more they saw how incoherent, lacking clear policy, and personally erratic he was – many Republicans I know decided NOT to vote for McCain in the last month after being for him in the summer after watching him campaign in the fall).
With 2nd fiddles Biden and Palin also managing to alienate more voters everytime they opened their mouths, than they attracted.
You could argue that a better candidate than Obama could have been found – but it sure wasn’t Hillary or McCain.
Where America is right now, in a complete crisis of confidence in the government and those running the “levers of traditional capitalism” – I’d have far preferred a Romney or Tom Ridge – but then I’d be a “damn RINO” out of step with “The Base” for preferring an abortion law moderate or a non-Southern religious heretic from a “bizarre religion” who evangelicals hate almost as much as they do Papist Hispanic Catholics and Pentacostalists.
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Jazz Shaw is perceptive on the screwing that David Paterson may have boxed himself in by timing. He either gets punked as a weak tool in the governor’s office by accident by the powerful NYC Elite forces demanding Princess Caroline be annointed with the title she requests – or he pisses off the National Party that want the Camelot replacement designee.
Because once Teddy kicks the bucket…the despicable RFK Jr., Joe Kennedy (who may inherit Teddy’s job eventually), and Teddy’s misbegotten drug-addled spawn Patrick just don’t make plutocrats gush and open their wallets like Caroline does.
Paterson also has to think of Party balance, and that is perhaps his best argument against the rich and powerful demanding he be appointing yet another person from NYC…and that extends not just to someone of aristocratic entitlement, but from the powerful Jewish community…which despite their power and wealth is just 10% of the New York population.
Before he came in by Spitzers foibles – 4 of the 5 most powerful spots in the State were owned by NYC Jews. Spitzer, Mayor Bloomberg, Schumer, Speaker Sheldon Silver (D, Manahattan).
2 of the 5 “replacements” for Hillary are NYC Jews..three if you count Mrs Schlossberg..who recently has made it clear that her kids celebrate Jewish holidays and their dad’s Jewish heritage, but like her are being raised “good Catholics.”
Paterson himself is upper crust black Manhattanite.
And 1 more, a non-Jew, is also NYC (Queens)born and bred before being “upgraded” to Manhattan quarters – Andrew Cuomo.
So you could end up with Upstate being shut out completely, power monopolized by NYC, or by NYC Jews and Spitzers affirmnative action pick.
The resentment of Upstaters to NYC and Manhattan Elites is already there. It could get worse and impact 2010 elections if Paterson goes with an aristocrat plucked out of nowhere, or another NYC Jew, or even “earned it by being elected” Princeling Andrew Cuomo.
Not that New Yorkers outside Brooklyn and Manhattan would reject accepting another Jew in high power simply for being a Jew…provided, of course, they were an Upstate Jew. Or an aristocrat, provided they were preferably outside NYC and had actually done something substantial in their lives past charity fundraising and editing favorote family poem books – making them worthy of appointment to high office.
Dec 21, 2008 - 11:06 am 15. Cybergeezer:Oh, si! The supremacy of the Kennedy’s is globally renowned and ultimate entitlement to any office of their desire is granted, my dear. They know not democracy within their hierarchy. Those whom cast shadows on this incomparable royal family are mere peons. Cursed we be.
Dec 21, 2008 - 12:07 pm 16. NCBob:Hey, if upstate wants to be “represented,” than it had better come up with as much in cash and trade as Kennedy. Paterson is dirty, so there will be cash to some friends or relatives that will find it’s way to him. And, then, there’ll guarantees of election cash to Paterson from Teddy, and the usual left wing money men. The only difference between the purchase of the Senate seat in New York from the seat in Illinois is that the New Yorkers are more subtle.
Dec 21, 2008 - 12:37 pm 17. Robbins Mitchell:Of course, Kennedy may not be the only bidder. Chelsea will eventually want her seat, so Willie may find the candidacy of a very senior personal who’ll only serve for the balance of Hillie’s term.
Well,isn’t this just too,too precious?…Nazi Joe’s grandtwinkie wants to be a US Senator…never mind that she is a scion of what is arguably the sleaziest family in the history of American politics…well,she never drowned anybody,never crashed a plane,never wrecked a PT boat,isn’t a druggie and never bootlegged whiskey….geez,what else do the people of NY expect of a Kennedy?
Dec 21, 2008 - 1:18 pm 18. katiejane:Too had the Clinton daughter isn’t old enough for the seat – Hillary could “demand” that Chelsea be annointed.
Dec 21, 2008 - 1:20 pm 19. don:Hey, it’s the century of the women. However, if I were Patterson I’d pick Opra. No sense keeping it just a gender thing when in the interest of diversity you can have a senator from Ebony rather than a Kennedy from Peoples Magazine. And Martha’s Vineyard is over represented in the government when we could be nation building in Chicago with mandatory midnight basket ball to combat child obesity. And Martha’s Vineyard could take the place of Gitmo. All those POWs need is a presidential pardon, honorary membership in the American armed forces, and we can test the limits of the third amendment that provides for the billeting of military personnel in civilian homes with due process. If nothing else, it will test the liberal solution to crime by providing a rich cultural Island experience for those terrorists.
Dec 21, 2008 - 2:28 pm 20. Войска ПВО:cedarford writes:
“They compounded that when the Right Wing, evangelical segment went bonkers for the woman who had been mayor of a town of 5,000, then on a commission for 1 month, then governor of a small population state for 1 1/2 years.”
..which, as I recall, is more executive experience that both Obama and Biden have put together. Not to resurrect that hoary debate, but among the points made is that Delaware’s population is about the same as Alaska’s and the VPOTUS-Elect gas bag has done squat in his 36+ years as a senator except bloviate. But the issue isn’t Sarah Palin versus Chimpy, the Kenyan and Plugs, it’s how the left sees Caroline the Deb as “experienced” with NO certifiable accomplishments except curtsying at a few charity balls while they bag on how shallow and unaccomplished Palin is.
Guess you’re a card-carrying member of that club too.
Dec 21, 2008 - 5:19 pm 21. myth buster:Might I also point out that cedarford neglected to mention the most experienced candidate in the Republican primary (and indeed the aggregate of both primaries): Mike Huckabee, who was a governor for 10.5 years, and a Lt. Governor for 3. BTW, regarding McCain’s executive experience, you have to include the time he spent as an XO, which I believe was five or six years.
Dec 21, 2008 - 7:13 pm 22. The Historian:DISASTER ON THEIR WATCH MERITS A RAISE?
We need to get rid of our reprehensible representatives and the earliest opportunity:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/economy-in-crisis-congress-gets-raise.html
Dec 21, 2008 - 8:35 pm 23. Habib:Mr. Shaw! “Camelot Beauty” indeed!
While I realize you are being sarcastic as the dickens with that comment, Ms. Kennedy definitely has something gone haywire in the aeshthetics department. I thought I had a hard life, but for those that have not seen her closeup, she literally appears to be 30 years older than her chronological age.
What is going on there? One wonders whether her father, who was a walking “Camelot Health Disaster” might have passed on some genetic characterics that were not in her best interest.
There really is something wrong with the poor woman (I’m serious!). Google some of her images. Whatever is working on her, it is quite profound.
Dec 21, 2008 - 10:16 pm 24. John Burke:Great column. Paterson is in a box, and it’s too bad, since he has a wealth of good candidates from which to choose. Dame Caroline is not one of them. Her presumption is breathtaking but not surprising.
See my comments at:
http://thepurplecenter.blogspot.com/2008/12/dame-caroline-deigns-to-represent-us.html
Dec 21, 2008 - 11:04 pm 25. Carol Blanchard:Do you think we could all take a little time off from bashing our fellow countrymen to celebrate Jesus Birthday? He may be coming back very soon, and I for one would be sad if I did not have at least one commentary wishing a fellow American well who wants to try to help us in this hour of need. I am proud that Caroline Kennedy loves her country enough to still want to serve after all she’s been through in her lifetime. God Bless You All.
Dec 22, 2008 - 12:22 am 26. vivo:I’ve been saying it to you all Pajammers: the good old Banana Republic of the USA.
It goes both ways: Dems and Reps.
And I get flack for that . . . ??
Dec 22, 2008 - 12:33 am 27. susan:vivo, the banana republic is for monkeys, that’s why you democrats are so happy you keep on electing primates.
Dec 22, 2008 - 1:25 am 28. Войска ПВО:Carol Blanchard writes:
“I am proud that Caroline Kennedy loves her country enough to still want to serve after all she’s been through in her lifetime. God Bless You All.”
Ms Blanchford, these are noble and profoundly charitable sentiments. However, just wanting to serve one’s country and being a member of the Kennedy clan — for whom, arguably, tragedy has visited abundantly — is not the sole qualification for elevation to U.S. Senator.
Indeed, McCain loves his country, has cornered the misery market with his five years in Hell (otherwise known as The Hanoi Hilton) and should, by your standards, have been selected over the Vaporous One, whose only trials seem to have been which ally to pick in the steaming cesspool of Chicago politics.
Dec 22, 2008 - 8:09 am 29. Karin:As a New Yorker, I’m starting to feel very, very disenfranchised. I wish that we could take everything north of Utica and make our own state. I’m so sick of celebrity worship.
Dec 22, 2008 - 8:51 am 30. don L:I would prefer to refer to the entire Kennedy worship racket as Scamelot!
Dec 22, 2008 - 12:12 pm 31. vivo:27. susan:
“vivo, the banana republic is for monkeys,”
Now I remember where I saw you! In the zoo . . .
Dec 22, 2008 - 7:14 pm 32. Dr. Lumplevin:So, what’s wrong with a banana republic? They have nice beaches, skimpy clothes, lots of fruit, are not too caught up in money grubbing capitalism, and a small elite usually run stuff so the rest don’t have to worry.
Plus I like their line of clothes. Win-win.
Dec 23, 2008 - 5:07 am 33. WestGuard:Another Kennedy is the last thing America needs. Please, all present and future Kennedy’s, find another line of work!
Dec 26, 2008 - 11:54 am 34. vcb-tn:“egg”cellent writers all, i’ve have thouroughly enjoyed all posts.
Dec 30, 2008 - 12:39 am 35. vcb-tn:vcb from tennessee.
is c.k. drug addled…?, seriously., think blago…, teddy…., barney…?
Dec 30, 2008 - 12:45 am