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 appearances
over 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.