I’ll give her a shot, but I’m definitely not favorably disposed toward her since she seems to be getting the job through a combination of name recognition and publicly trying to force Paterson to appoint her.
The last I heard is that the scales are leaning in her favor. I think it’s a mistake. She doesn’t seem comfortable in the role. I’m actually getting a vibe that she’s being pressured into this role. Her “desire” for the job is completely unconvincing to me.
Didn’t Jackie whore herself out to that wizened Greek midget precisely so that her kids would never have to do anything degrading like work a real job a day in their lives?
I don’t think that gets mentioned nearly enough or if people even realize what is probably happening. Uncle Teddy is the last of the truly politically powerful Kennedy’s and he is going to die from brain cancer soon. The younger generations just don’t have that much talent left. Uncle Teddy saw an opportunity as soon as Hilary got appointed Secretary of State and tried a Hail Mary pass to keep the family prominent in party politics after he dies. It most likely was not Caroline’s idea. There was no way to know the seat would open up at all. She is clearly not qualified but she is being used as a game piece.
It’s really puzzling, because some of the other “third tier” Kennedy Kids actually do have experience in politics. I would think that it’d be easier to move one of those pieces into the slot than to take her out of her element and thrust her into a lifestyle she’s clearly not comfortable in.
Maybe no one else wanted it, but jeeeez…pushing her into it certainly doesn’t seem like an effective way to continue the dynasty.
This is a good question, but if I were a New Yorker, the answer would be yes.
She immediately brings a high profile to your state. Yes, it is due to the Kennedy name, but hey - it puts your state up front.
She comes from a family that has proven to be Democratic to the core…and I think it would be safe to say she will continue to stay that course.
Are there more qualified people?
Certainly. Probably quite a few.
But anyone in marketing knows the value of celebrity. Slapping the Kennedy name on your open Senate position ensures your state will be heard above the fray. If Caroline Kennedy puts forward legislation, you know it will not get buried in the mix like it might be if Joe Smith put the same legislation up for a vote.
Fair? Probably not - but throughout history, in countries all over the world, family members of a famous leader often enter the political arena. This doesn’t mean she might not lose the next election to someone more qualified, but for the time being, New Yorkers would be stupid NOT to put her in office to fill the gap and not lose prestige and clout.
If I am not mistaken, people thought Hilary was a flash in the pan, a carpetbagger and all kinds of things…I think she served NY well and it didn’t seem to hurt that she had the Clinton name to get where she got.
In other words, just because she is a Kennedy is not a reason to elect her, but a damn good reason to put her in as a temporary placeholder until she can prove herself worthy of getting elected on her own.
Not to step too deep into things about which I do not know, but I think that they were old buds long before she married him, and before JFK bit the big one. I also heard, somewhere, that JFK had her called back from some trip over there because there were rumors about her and the gnome. Of course, she may have been playing the harlot then, but, can’t say for sure.
I’m not actually suggesting that Ari literally picked her up cruising 8th Avenue --of course they knew each other prior to getting married. But I’ve always heard it explained as an arrangement primarily financial in nature–he was buying prestige, publicity, cachet, etc. and she was getting a lock-solid, iron-clad contract to end her up with a shitload of money. There’s some question, as I recall, how often they slept together or even if she was required to as a condition of their contractual arrangement, but it was not your ordinary “love at first sight” sort of a deal. Supposedly (as far as I can recall–this is all going back a ways) Jackie wanted mega-$$$$ to be able to assure herself that neither she nor her kids would ever be anything other than zillionaires forever.
Since this is pure memory, and some may be fiction, I’ll be interested in anyone’s refutations, but this is what I remember concluding some 40 years back.
Oh, I hope you didn’t get the idea that I was dissing your point, or point of view. Not even close. I’m just saying that he wasn’t the pud that everybody had him pegged as being when they married. Sure, he was short, and flabby, but I think he had the dynamism and charisma that many rich people have (not that money alone isn’t a selling point) that could get a middle aged celebrity, such as Jackie.
Somehow, it’s my impression that Jackie could have had her pick of younger, much better looking, studlier guys whose only disadvantage from her point of view was that they were only multi-millionaires. Seriously. When she married Onassis, she was in her mid-30s (late 30s at most), a lovely, refined, enormously sympathetic woman who probably had thousands, maybe millions of men ranking her the single most desirable woman on the planet–and she picked someone who looked like something she’d dug out of her nostril? Can’t see it for a second.
Oh, come on. The guy’s no JFK-style hunk, but he’s not bad-looking. Not celebrity-quality, certainly, but maybe that’s what she wanted.
This is “not bad-looking” by you?
I think she could have done much better in the looks department, in the youth department, in the companionship, everywhere but in the mega-gazoola-zillion bux department.
You left a few “departments” out if you know what I mean. We will never know but she may have had her own reasons in the pre-Viagra days.
Yup. As I said, he’s no Cary Grant, but he’s also not all that ugly.
You have no idea how much your views mean for my love life as I approach my late fifties. Bless you, my child.
Power, a commanding presence, money and a bit of a bad boy attitude are powerful aphrodesiacs to a certain portion of the female populace. There are lots of women who go “Ewww” to thought of sex with Gene Simmons, for example, but if you’ve ever seen his TV show, you also see a virtually unlimited number of gorgeous women absolutely throwing themselves at him, and the fact is that Onassis’ life was filled with genuine romances with beautiful women, Maria Callas being perhaps the most notable outside of Jackie.
I saw Jackie’s sister Lee Radziwill on Larry King one night and King asked about Onassis. Radziwill said that Onassis had a very commanding presence, with the manner and bearing one would expect of a king…and of course his money, power and bad boy nature are well known.
There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that the relationship was on the rocks by the time Onassis died, but life experience has taught me that Jackie may very well have been genuinely drawn to him in a romantic sense at the time they married.
Well, at least I have that.