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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS