The start of Caroline Kennedy’s “listening tour” was awfully hard to hear.
So far, her first foray into politics has been one of private meetings, brief appearances and unanswered questions about what she would do, say and think if chosen as New York’s next US senator.
It’s a similar strategy to the one Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton employed successfully in 1999 to meet and listen to residents and politicians before the 2000 Senate race, but with a big difference: Kennedy’s really campaigning for only one voter — New York Governor David Paterson.
He has the sole responsibility for naming a successor if Clinton is confirmed as US president-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
“It is not a campaign,” Kennedy said after a private meeting with Democratic officials in Rochester.
Yet there is an intense lobbying effort under way to persuade the people who can persuade the governor to make her a senator.
In that, the 51-year-old daughter of late president John F. Kennedy is no different than the dozen or so other Senate hopefuls — but her effort has been far more closely scrutinized because she has never run for office and little is known about her politics, personality or priorities.
A big part of Kennedy’s effort is trying to convince upstate political bosses that she sees beyond the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
Upstate New Yorkers feel chronically ignored by New York’s political leadership, especially now that the governor and both senators live in or near New York City.
The region that sprawls from New York City’s suburbs to the Canadian border and west to Lake Erie has been in the economic doldrums for years, long before the financial meltdown.
If Clinton wins confirmation early next year, Paterson will appoint someone to the seat for two years.
Kennedy stumbled in her first public appearance on Wednesday in Syracuse. She met privately for an hour with local politicians, then spoke to reporters for 30 seconds before being hustled away by an aide.
Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll said she “seemed pleasant” and added: “I think she’s certainly well-read.”
Former federal prosecutor Dan French said she would return to Syracuse to talk more.
“People need to let her jump into this,” French said. “She’s doing everything she can to meet people and hear from people, and she’s just begun.”
The trip did not get good reviews.
“A drive-by visit,” the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle called it, urging her to come back and speak publicly to real people, not politicians.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS