Thursday, January 22, 2009

Caroline, No

Judging by how Caroline Kennedy's withdrawl from the race has been handled, New Yorkers are being deprived of what could have been months and months of entertainment value if she had been appointed Senator.

Caroline is getting out for anyone of the following reasons, according to published accounts from semi-respectable news sources: Personal reasons (poll numbers being in the tank); Uncle Teddy is sick (but seems to have recovered from the illness he got during the inaugural); really personal, personal reasons (like going out with the publisher of the New York Times while married to someone else, say some D.C. news sources); tax and nanny issues (which probably would have come out weeks ago); or Governor Paterson not liking her that much (which doesn't make sense, given Caroline's closeness to The One).

Two things are clear: Democrat Governor Paterson has really screwed what should have been a simple process. Not appointing Kennedy could hurt NY big, big time with the stimulus funds being handed out by Team Obama. Wouldn't it have been easier to justtry and sell the seat to the highest bidder, in keeping with Democratic party tradition?

The second is that the way this whole Caroline has played out has been weird and unsettling, from the non-interviews and running from reporters, to Paterson's game playing with the selection process. But after seeing sources close to the governor feeding nasty details of Caroline's personal life to the press, the Kennedy's will probably be unhappy, to say the least. Funny, then, that the end of Caroline's campaign could also mean disaster for Dave.