Caroline Kennedy withdraws her bid to replace Hillary Clinton for the New York Senate seat.
Ms. Kennedy on Wednesday called Gov. David A. Paterson, who will choose a successor to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, to inform him that she was no longer interested.
“I informed Governor Paterson today that for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate,” Ms. Kennedy said in a statement released by her public relations firm.
Ms. Kennedy did not elaborate, but a person who spoke to her suggested that her concerns about the health of her uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who suffers from brain cancer and was hospitalized after a seizure on Tuesday, contributed to her decision.
Ms. Kennedy believed that the job was hers if she would accept it, the person said, but aides to Mr. Paterson would not comment on whether that was true.
Read the whole thing at New York Times.
Fact is name is not enough, Kennedy had no practical experience at all and being a Kennedy should not have been reason enough to place her such a position.
Then again, lack of experience for the position didn't stop Obama from winning the presidency, so nothing would have surprised me at this point.
LA Times' Top of the Ticket, gives an update saying there are conflicting reports over this NYT story.
(UPDATE: Later Wednesday evening NBC quoted a Kennedy family source as contradicting those reports, blaming a miscommunication and saying she remained in the running. The Associated Press, quoting an unidentified Albany source, also said the withdrawal reports were erroneous.)
Firedoglake makes this point:
I didn't know how David Paterson was going to justify appointing Kennedy when virtually every poll showed an ever-widening gap between her and Andrew Cuomo as to whom New Yorkers would prefer. The main argument for Kennedy, despite her inexperience and her pathetic roll out (courtesy of Lieberman/Netanyahu handler Josh Isay) was her name recognition and ability to hold the seat in 2010. If Cuomo is beating her handily in the polls, that argument disappears.
Commentary brings up the idiocy of her even being in the running to begin with:
And who thought up this idea of Senator Caroline in the first place? Perhaps Caroline did get the political bug or maybe a pushy relative thought the Senate should always have a Kennedy. But that was a terrible error. It was the perfect storm: putting her in utterly unfamiliar territory (the real world), sending her out to do battle with the media without a political policy idea in her head, and ignoring the obvious pattern of the undeserving “Democrats by appointment” storyline. The end was predictably disastrous.
The only part of the entire sordid episode that worked was the ending — courteous and kind. Quite fitting for the pretend princess.
Despite the confusion and conflicting reports... AP sent out a short bulletin saying a spokesperson confirmed her withdrawal.
That as they say is ...that.
.