In her bid to be appointed the next senator from New York, Caroline Kennedy has zigzagged across the state and talked with dozens of officials and community leaders. She has aired views on topics from the Iraq war to the auto industry bailout and submitted to a round of press interviews.
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But after a lifetime of being wooed by others — to speak at events, to write books, to lend her aura of celebrity and glamour to this or that cause — it seems clear that Ms. Kennedy is still finding her stride in what is, for her, a kind of reverse challenge: selling herself.
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and JEREMY W. PETERS
The New York Times
US Senate hopeful Caroline Kennedy, seen here in October 2008, drew stinging criticism Tuesday over her weekend interviews after weeks of silence, with many lampooning her as a clumsy and unfocused speaker.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Win Mcnamee)
Interviews with more than a dozen people who have met or spoken with her in recent weeks reveal a fairly uniform portrait of the private Ms. Kennedy in her first turn as a very public woman. Most described her as courteous but reticent, unfailingly gracious but not exactly passionate.
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, who has known Ms. Kennedy for years and had lunch with her this month, said Ms. Kennedy was smart, shy and reserved. Keith L. T. Wright, a Democratic state assemblyman from Harlem who spoke with Ms. Kennedy on the phone a few days before Christmas, said she had yet to light a fire among potential backers.
“I don’t know many people who are ready to go ‘Rah! Rah! She’s our candidate,’” he said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/
nyregion/31caroline.html?em
