As a candidate, Kennedy is forceful but elusive

By Nicholas Confessore and David M. Halfinger

updated 6:30 a.m. ET Dec. 28, 2008

ALBANY - Caroline Kennedy, the woman who would be New York’s next senator, is sure of one thing. Among all the hopefuls seeking to succeed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, she said on Saturday, there is no better choice.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I would be the best,” Ms. Kennedy said, sitting in the back room of an Upper East Side diner around the corner from her home.

After weeks of criticism that she had not opened up to the public or the press, Ms. Kennedy has embarked on a series of interviews. But in an extensive sit-down discussion Saturday morning with The New York Times, she still seemed less like a candidate than an idea of one: forceful but vague, largely undefined and seemingly determined to remain that way.

Facing a somewhat delicate task, where she is not running for office but seeking an appointment to an impending vacancy, Ms. Kennedy avoided questions about the other possible contenders, saying she did not want to criticize them. She praised Mrs. Clinton, but said it was too soon to say how she could improve on Mrs. Clinton’s performance as a senator. She said she had been personally affected by the economic crisis but sidestepped questions about her wealth, declining to say how much money she lived on each year.

She provided only the broadest of rationales for her candidacy for the Senate, saying her experience as a mother, author and school fund-raiser, her commitment to public service and her deep political connections had prepared her for the job.

Video   Ready for the job? Dec. 22: As Caroline Kennedy announces her plans to seek Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, some are questioning whether she has the experience to take the position. Today show

Ms. Kennedy, 51, has had only a few weeks to think through a platform and a message, and she has already taken positions on issues like same-sex marriage, which she supports, and school vouchers, which she opposes. She spoke knowledgeably about education issues and said that, if appointed, she hoped to be particularly involved in the debate over the reauthorization of the federal legislation known as No Child Left Behind, of which her uncle Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts was a lead author.

But in the interview on Saturday, she said she hoped to be a consensus-builder, and declined to describe her positions on other pressing public issues — even in education, where she has some expertise. Ms. Kennedy would not say, for example, whether she supported proposals to abolish tenure for teachers and offer them merit pay instead.

“To pick out the most controversial one as a stand-alone thing, I don’t think that’s really the way to go about this,” Ms. Kennedy said. “People can vote; it’ll be really interesting to see what happens. There’s a lot of experimentation going on in the country that we should pay attention to.”

Years avoiding spotlight
The interview underscored the aura of mystery that still surrounds Ms. Kennedy nearly a month after she told Gov. David A. Paterson that she was interested in filling Mrs. Clinton’s seat.

New Yorkers appear to have a favorable view of Ms. Kennedy and fond memories of her family. But they know little about her positions or what has driven her to seek office after years spent mostly avoiding the spotlight.

With several weeks to go before Mr. Paterson makes his decision, she is doling out glimpses of her political beliefs and private life. But when asked Saturday morning to describe the moment she decided to seek the Senate seat, Ms. Kennedy seemed irritated by the question and said she couldn’t recall.

“Have you guys ever thought about writing for, like, a woman’s magazine or something?” she asked the reporters. “I thought you were the crack political team.”

On an appearance Friday night on NY1, Ms. Kennedy was more lighthearted, and also more personal. She talked about her family’s political legacy, about how much she missed her brother, and about how much her mother had loved campaigning.

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But on Saturday morning, Ms. Kennedy was all business and seemed in a more lawyerly frame of mind. At one point, she said that it might have been preferable to seek the seat in an election, noting that “it would give me a chance to explain exactly what I’m doing, why I would want to do this, and, you know, to get people to know me better and to understand exactly what my plans would be, how hard I would work.”

But she would not say whether she thought Mr. Paterson should appoint a caretaker candidate to fill out Mrs. Clinton’s term, which would allow Ms. Kennedy and others interested in the seat an equal and unfettered chance to campaign for it in 2010.

“This is the opportunity that’s presenting itself right now, and I’m interested if the governor thinks that I could do a good job and help New York and help him,” Ms. Kennedy said.

Ms. Kennedy said she had spoken “throughout this process” with Andrew M. Cuomo, the attorney general, who is a contender for the job himself and is divorced from Ms. Kennedy’s cousin Kerry Kennedy. There are at least a half dozen other serious contenders for the job, including Thomas R. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, and Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney and Kirsten E. Gillibrand.

“I’m not a conventional choice,” Ms. Kennedy said. “I haven’t followed the traditional path, but I do think I’d bring a kind of a lifetime of experience that is relevant to this job.”

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