by Bill Kavanagh: As a New York based blogger, I’ve been tempted to write about the possible appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the Senate for weeks now. Caroline provides lots of glib opportunities to take shots in print at the powerful and the well connected. Her celebrity and her relative lack of resume in politics are easy pickings. Her shy, patrician manner and casual speech are also personality traits ripe for ridicule. But the truth is, I’m not entirely sure it would be a bad idea to appoint her as our next Senator.
I would prefer to see a woman legislator who’s been actually working in the trenches, like Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Carolyn Maloney or Deborah Glick get elevated to the Senate. Once there, it wouldn’t matter whether most New Yorkers knew the candidate prior to her appointment. Whoever occupies the post will become a staple of our news on a daily basis and by 2010 she will become a known entity, capable of running for re-election on her own record.
On the other hand, Caroline Kennedy isn’t a bad choice just because she hasn’t been a legislator or previously run for public office. Despite the first instinct I have to reject her candidacy, because she’d be rewarded more for her name and her connections than for her record, Caroline has a fair resume to recommend her as a representative of the state. She has worked to recognize human rights and civil rights through her work on the Profiles in Courage Awards. She also has a body of written work on legal and human rights subjects and, despite recent media flops, shows, on balance, an adept mind in appearancesover time. Her work for the NYC school system also makes her a favorite for those who care about public education.
Like the other possible candidates, Caroline would be a known entity by the year 2010, when the next Senate election will take place, with a record to run on. Given the withering criticism she’s already taking, it seems likely that Kennedy would either prove a successful Senator—or withdraw from consideration for re-election. If she is successful, her chances of keeping the seat are probably better than those of any other possible appointment Governor Patterson could make, even Andrew Cuomo, whose name recognition rivals Caroline’s.
State Attorney General Cuomo, like Kennedy, benefits from his family connections, but unlike Kennedy, his appointment wouldn’t keep one of the few Senate seats now occupied by a woman as a diverse seat. He certainly has the qualifications to ascend to the Senate, but there’s a sort of passionless quality to Cuomo’s public persona that makes one wonder if he has the internal fire that the Cuomo name implies— and which New York should want in our Senator. Headlines on his own website, like “Attorney General Cuomo prosecuting Parole Board Chairman for Stealing State-Owned Laptop” really make me wonder about his seriousness as well.
While I’d be fine jumping on board the Caroline bandwagon and reliving some great Kennedy moments through her, I’m still a little torn. She’d be a decent choice, certainly a sincere and progressive choice. But she isn’t exactly setting the world on fire right now either.
Not that anyone is asking me—but if they did, I guess suggest that Governor Patterson, himself an incredibly unlikely, but so far a good governor, appoint State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins to the post and promote a progressive African American woman who has already proved that she’s got the fire in her belly to make change. Senator Stewart-Cousins broke ground in the State Senate and works hard in a district with a long history of African Americans being underrepresented and ignored by the city and state. She ground out an incredibly hard fought election battle against an entrenched Republican incumbent for her seat, but lost in 2004— by only 18 votes. Then she came back in 2006 to beat the incumbent the next time around. She is in her second term now.
Stewart-Cousins works hard on women’s issues, health issues, and on community development. Her career track record as a local activist is one that most legislators can only aspire to, having helped revitalize neighborhoods in Yonkers where government is usually just synonymous with corruption and decay. Having spent part of my life living in the district she now represents, I would not have expected to see someone of her caliber rise to higher office, as she has, without becoming a part of the problem. Somehow, Andrea has managed to do so, and with class.
But hey, no one’s asking me. So, Caroline… I guess she’s OK too.
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(Kavanagh also posts at Bill's Big Diamond Blog.)
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