CAROLINE KENNEDY has unexpectedly ended her bid to replace Hillary Clinton as New York senator, citing unspecified “personal reasons” for the decision.
Ms Kennedy issued a one-line statement announcing her withdrawal yesterday morning after conflicting reports from New York about her intentions.
New York governor David Patterson had promised to name Mrs Clinton’s successor by the weekend, and most Democratic insiders expected him to choose the daughter of assassinated president John F Kennedy.
Some members of the Kennedy family suggested at first that Ms Kennedy’s decision to withdraw her name from consideration may have been prompted by concern for the health of her uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy, who suffered a seizure on Tuesday during President Barack Obama’s inaugural lunch.
However, Mr Kennedy’s serious medical condition has been known since his brain cancer diagnosis last summer, long before Mrs Clinton’s appointment as secretary of state was announced.
Later yesterday, aides to Ms Kennedy were reported as saying that she withdrew because of a different, unspecified personal issue and that she had been confident the governor would appoint her.
Ms Kennedy had the support of a number of powerful figures in New York, including the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and she was widely believed to be the choice of Mr Obama, for whom she campaigned last year.
Her bid to succeed Mrs Clinton met some resistance, however, after faltering performances in media interviews and the revelation that she failed to vote in a number of elections.
“She has pluses and minuses,” Mr Patterson said last month. “Caroline Kennedy obviously does have a tremendous relationship with the president and that’s certainly a plus . . . She does not have much political, I mean legislative, experience, which is a minus.”
Ms Kennedy’s withdrawal leaves New York’s popular attorney general, Anthony Cuomo, as the frontrunner for the Senate seat.
Mr Patterson is under some pressure to choose a woman, a member of an ethnic minority or someone from upstate New York. He and the state’s senior senator, Chuck Schumer, are from New York City. Other possible candidates are congresswomen Kirsten Gillibrand and Carolyn B Maloney and Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers.
Whoever succeeds Mrs Clinton will have to defend the Senate seat in a special election in 2010 and again two years later, when the former first lady’s six-year term would have ended.
