"Princess Of Camelot" Kennedy Goes For Senate

The intensely private Caroline Kennedy, 51, decides to go for the open senate seat in New York left by Hillary Clinton...amid an awkward political debut by evading television cameras and charging past the press into an SUV waiting outside, seconds after officially declaring she wants a seat in the Senate. Some say its Park Avenue privilage being exercised, others claim she is trading on the Kennedy name, fame and connections for spring boarding into elected politics.

The publicity-shy Democrat is not exactly known for going out of her way to engage people even in casual conversation. However she has quietly gone about her personal "causes" such as assisting in raising $350 million to help out the New York City pubic schools.

Kennedy was quoted yesterday while in Buffalo, NY as saying "I've spent a lifetime growing up around public policy issues, and public service is something I'm proud of in the family tradition. It's something that I've always wanted to do. I've worked in New York City public schools. I've written books on the constitution, I've raised my family, and now it's time, I think, with the problems we have, for me to be able to step forward and do more."

The New York state governor, David Paterson, can choose Clinton's replacement to the Senate, but whoever is chosen will have to endure a run in a 2010 special election. Kennedy has engaged the services of the savvy world political player, Josh Isay (currently he is consulting for Israeli Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu). Caroline already has approached women's organizations (met with an abortion rights group this past Monday as a pro-choice candidate. She has even made the trek to the upstate areas of New York where 40% of the vote resides.

Only five years old when JFK (her father) was assassinated, Kennedy lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan currently. A former student at Harvard University and Columbia law school, she then married Edwin Schlossberg (a designer and artist). Caroline has never changed her surname from the Kennedy moniker. She has a son and two college-aged daughters. Her mother died of cancer in 1994 and in 1999 her brother John was killed in a plane crash. She is the only immediate JFK family living member. She has written seven books rather than practice law full time. She has been the keeper of her father's legacy by being actively involved in awards and foundations bearing her father's name.

Kennedy met with Barack Obama in 2007 in hopes of using her name's influence in the Democratic primary and had indicated that Obama echoed her father's effect on politics. This is one more event that is scheming to create more excitement in the world of U.S. politics. (source: guardian.co.uk photo:BrianSnyder/Reuters)