Goodman: Why Not Caroline?

Edward Kennedy’s 1962 Senate run sent howls of “nepotism” through Massachusetts, with an opponent charging that, were his name Edward Moore not Edward Moore Kennedy, his “candidacy would be a joke.” One could say much the same for Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, “but I find myself unable to dredge up even a modicum of outrage at the idea,” Ellen Goodman writes in the Boston Globe.

Kennedy is no worse a celebrity candidate than Al Franken or (cousin-in-law) Arnold Schwarzenegger, not “any less entitled to this post than the business leader who decides that his acumen at widgets qualifies him to lead a country.” Beside, Caroline is in a way a symbol for her generation, Goodman writes: “There is something tender and timely in seeing this particular woman coming home to the family business.” (More Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg stories.)