Caroline Kennedy

ALBANY—Of all the public-minded people insisting they are not campaigning in the non-campaign to convince David Paterson they should be appointed to the U.S. Senate, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is not-campaigning the hardest.

Publicly, at least, it's working like a charm.  read more »

ALBANY—Representative Steve Israel's travels in the last few weeks have taken him to Baghdad, Germany and now: Hornell.  read more »

ALBANY—A poll released today found that Caroline Kennedy's standing among New York voters has plummeted in relation to Andrew Cuomo's.  read more »

ALBANY—David Paterson seems to have gotten so frustrated with everything U.S. Senate–related that he would rather see a special election to fill the seat.  read more »

RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum emailed me to take issue with Kevin Sheekey's latest argument for appointing Caroline Kennedy to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg visited two babies born in Queens and declared, officially, that they’re both the first babies born in 2009.

He joked, “Some of the papers will find problems with the mayor abusing his authority by doing this. But, you know, that’s what leadership is all about.”

And: “The City Council will hold hearings, I’m sure.”  read more »

ALBANY—David Paterson hasn't appeared publicly since Christmas, but took questions before continuing the New Year's Day tradition of receiving visitors at the Executive Mansion.  read more »

Kevin Sheekey is making an argument for Caroline Kennedy in the Senate on the grounds that she endorsed Barack Obama, while the New York Democratic establishment "turned its back” on him.  read more »

After I tried to get a comment from Kevin Sheekey about the report that he's pulling away from the effort to make Caroline Kennedy the next Senator from New York, he had mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser reach out to me.  read more »

After Caroline Kennedy’s unsteady debut, I wondered how much it would help to remind some people that the incoming president had once referred to her as “one of my dearest friends.”  read more »

The reaction to Caroline Kennedy’s recent rollout, at least among unaffiliated political observers I've spoken to, has not been so positive.

The idea that her public performance has damaged her chances, maybe seriously, seems to have become the consensus take.  read more »

ALBANY—The capital city's Democratic mayor does not think Caroline Kennedy is the answer.  read more »

Veteran New York politics journalist Andrew Kirtzman, who is currently writing a book on the Bernard Madoff scandal, thinks that Caroline Kennedy's public roll-out has been a catastrophe, and that she and her handlers are blowing the behind-the-scenes lobbying effort for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat as well.  read more »

Even though Chuck Schumer appeared yesterday next to Jerry Nadler – who, like others, has said he wants to be the next United States senator from New York – Schumer said that he isn’t making public or private endorsements in that matter.  read more »

ALBANY— In a 30-minute video interview with NY1's Dominic Carter, Caroline Kennedy  flipped the criticism that her biggest qualification is her last name, telling Carter, "If my last name weren't Kennedy, maybe I would have run for office a long time ago."  read more »

ALBANY--Caroline Kennedy sat for an interview with the Associated Press.  read more »

ALBANY—What do a Democratic assemblyman from the Bronx, a Republican state senator from Rome, a good-government advocate and the Niagara County Republican chairman have in common?

They all oppose New York's current system for selecting a vacancy for the U.S. Senate.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg tried downplaying the idea that U.S.  read more »

ALBANY—A reader sent along this interview that WNYC's Leonard Lopate conducted with Caroline Kennedy in 2002.  read more »

At a cocktail party attended by Democratic elected officials and operatives on the evening of December 18 at Josie Wood's Pub on Waverly Place, political consultant Joseph Mercurio was enjoying a glass of merlot when a former associate and supporter of Andrew Cuomo approached to make some small talk. Before long, the discussion turned to Caroline Kennedy.  read more »

At a cocktail party attended by Democratic elected officials and operatives on the evening of December 18 at Josie Wood's Pub on Waverly Place, political consultant Joseph Mercurio was enjoying a glass of merlot when a former associate and supporter of Andrew Cuomo approached to make some small talk. Before long, the discussion turned to Caroline Kennedy.

"She's like Sarah Palin," said the attorney general's former associate, according to Mr. Mercurio.

A few minutes later, a staffer to Carolyn Maloney came over to make the case for the Upper East Side representative, telling Mr. Mercurio, "She should be the choice."

"It's on a lot of people's minds," said Mr.  read more »

ALBANY—Even on the other side of the Atlantic, David Paterson can't escape the buzz over whom he will appoint to the U.S. Senate.

The governor, with representatives Steve Israel and Anthony Weiner, just held a conference call from an air base in Germany on their way back from Iraq and Afghanistan.  read more »

ALBANY—Sheldon Silver, a man of few enthusiasms, is particularly unenthusiastic about Caroline Kennedy.  read more »

ALBANY—A poll shows voters are reasonably cool to Caroline, but she's still who they expect Governor Paterson to appoint.  read more »

On Dec. 18, The Times published a letter from the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, that didn't have many kind things to say about Caroline Kennedy. The letter was written in good, if stiff English:

As mayor of Paris, I find Caroline Kennedy’s bid for the seat of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton both surprising and not very democratic, to say the least. What title has Ms. Kennedy to pretend to Hillary Clinton’s seat?

One couldn’t help but wonder: Why would Mr. Delanoë care about Caroline Kennedy? But you know the French! His kicker: "Can we speak of American decline?" Mais toujours, mon petit chou….  read more »

ALBANY—Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is still coy on whether he would want to succeed Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.  read more »

ALBANY—As things stand, the odds that a Republican will win election to the Senate in 2010 against Hillary Clinton's replacement, whoever that may be, are not particularly good.

But some of them say they see a way forward against one of the prospective Clinton successors: Caroline Kennedy.  read more »

Charlie Rangel's much talked about pronoun at the end of an interview with WNET (he said David Paterson's choice to replace Hillary Clinton is a "him") has fueled speculation about Caroline Kennedy's odds.

But Rangel's office just pointed out to me that the interview in question took place a week ago, on December 11, before the psuedo-official Kennedy campaign rollout, and strongly advised against reading too much into the remark.

ALBANY—Caroline Kennedy has called a fair number of people about her quest to become a U.S. senator these last few days, but Marcia Pappas wasn't one of them.  read more »

The array of powerful forces behind Caroline Kennedy has overshadowed other candidates to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate, but a prominent supporter of Tom Suozzi isn't giving up hope.  read more »

The array of powerful forces behind Caroline Kennedy has overshadowed other candidates to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate, but a prominent supporter of Tom Suozzi isn't giving up hope.

"The indication that I have is that he is a very serious contender," said Jay Jacobs, the Nassau County Democratic Party Chairman. "Tom is one of the people the governor is looking at."

Jacobs laid out the case for Suozzi, the Nassau County executive who ran for governor against Eliot Spitzer in the Democratic primary in 2006.

Aside from his experience in government, Jacobs said that Suozzi offers Governor David Paterson political benefits, such as an ability to raise money, and strong support in the suburbs and upstate, where the governor is presumably most vulnerable.  read more »

ALBANY—Michael Bloomberg says he knows who he would appoint to the U.S. Senate, but isn't sharing.  read more »

ALBANY—You may have seen this site in your friend's away status at least once in the last year.  read more »

Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf is not entirely convinced that Caroline Kennedy, if she is David Paterson's choice to replace Hillary Clinton, would win when the seat actually comes up for election.

"People have this deluded idea that it's hard to compete against a Kennedy, they should talk to Kennedy Townsend of Maryland. There is no Kennedy mythology in New York," Sheinkopf told me while I was reporting a story about Kennedy’s Senate bid in today's Observer.

"She is going to have to raise $40 million like anyone else -- why is it just assumed that she will have $40 million dollars to spend? Why is it presumed that she can just walk in and win? Peter King is going to be tough.  read more »

Why are magazine companies cutting their Web staffs? According to John Koblin, in the current climate "it appears a portion of the magazine world, which was never a quick adapter to the Web anyway, is responding by shoving their Web people right off the boat first. 'You’re never going to get the traffic that really matters,' said one publisher at Condé Nast. 'So it’s a traffic thing, but also, how do you monetize the traffic that you have? It’s impossible.'" Plus: What's Behind Post Cozying Up to Caroline?

Will new on-air talent be discovered now that networks are letting people go? Felix Gillette talks to New York-based talent-development executives and found that, in the words of Elena Nachmanoff of NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC, “In these times, it’s more important than ever."

Leon Neyfakh writes: "There were a few desperate hours on Monday morning when the layoffs taking place at Farrar, Straus and Giroux seemed like they were being carried out with an unsettling degree of spontaneity. To be sure, the staff had been living in fear of cutbacks for months (who hasn’t?), but the anxiety they experienced during that period was nothing compared to how most of them felt when they heard shortly after coming into work that longtime colleagues across the company were being pulled aside and informed of their redundancy."

Plus: A 25-Year-Old Boy Wonder Wants to Make This a Tech Town... Beware L'Homme Fatale!... What Really Killed the Office Party?.

ALBANY—Caroline Kennedy is heading to Buffalo after a visit to Syracuse.

She called Erie County Democratic Chairman Len Lenihan last night, he confirmed this morning, but was mostly "touching base."  read more »

ALBANY—New Yorkers seem to be getting used to the idea of Caroline Kennedy in the Senate as she "campaigns" for Hillary Clinton's seat.  read more »

Caroline Kennedy made her political debut in Manhattan almost exactly 10 years ago, when she showed up as the surprise speaker at a “teach-in” against the impeachment of Bill Clinton at New York University Law School. Her speech on that occasion was not memorable, nor did she display great passion as she read it, but none of that mattered. Her presence electrified what would otherwise have been a mundane gathering of liberal intellectuals, professors and politicians.

She had at least a touch of the magic—and a sense of when and how to use it.

Now, after a decade of writing and editing books, raising money for public schools in New York City and leading a mostly private life, Ms.  read more »

The New York Post’s endorsement of Caroline Kennedy yesterday is another brilliant example of the political mind of Rupert Murdoch.

For starters, it’s good to have a relationship. That’s a Rupert operating policy.

“I think Rupert has a special relationship with Caroline Kennedy and that has happened through [News Corp. spokesman] Gary Ginsberg, who was John Kennedy Jr.’s factotum,” said Michael Wolff, the writer who recently published The Man Who Owns the News, a biography of the media titan.

“They went to Brown together,” he continued. “Gary was very much involved with George magazine and he worked for George."  read more »

For several days, prominent members of the New York Democratic establishment complained publicly about Caroline Kennedy. Then, suddenly, it all stopped.

“I think people are about to get scared,” said one aide to a New York official.

The seminal, chilling event, in the end, was simply Ms. Kennedy’s decision to get serious—and go public—with her desire to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.

Specifically, she hired a well-known New York consulting firm with close ties to Chuck Schumer, and began making calls to prominent Democrats around the state, including the man with the power to name Mrs.  read more »

Given that the most pervasive criticism of Caroline Kennedy as a Senate candidate is that she is is a candidate mainly because she is a Kennedy, Ed Koch may or may not be helpful.  read more »

Caroline Kennedy's high-powered pursuit of Hillary Clinton's seat is not scaring off all the competition just yet.

Representative Steve Israel, who is often mentioned by supporters in and out of Congress as a candidate for the job, is still actively seeking the appointment, according to a source familiar with his thinking on the matter.

According to the source, Israel made his interest in the job known to the governor soon after Clinton's official nomination as secretary of state and feels that there is still time to make his case to the governor, despite the Kennedy earthquake.

"This is an audience of one and it's the governor," said the source. "This is not an election. It's an appointment."

Whenever a Kennedy decides that it's time to use the family name to claim a political office for which there are numerous better-prepared aspirants, a taunt aimed at Ted Kennedy back in 1962, when the 30-year-old presidential brother ran with absolutely no qualifications for the U.S. Senate, comes to mind.

"Teddy," Massachusetts Attorney General Eddie McCormack, Mr. Kennedy's opponent in that year's Democratic primary, said, "if your name was Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a farce."

Mr. McCormack, himself a political legacy (but at least a somewhat accomplished one), was right. As of '62, Mr.  read more »

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn also got a phone call from Caroline Kennedy, who is letting people know she’d like to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.  read more »

ALBANY—Representative Joe Crowley, the Queens Democratic Party Chairman, said that he had spoken to Caroline Kennedy as she expressed interest in the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton.