Path to Power
Kennedy's 1,000 days living in the White House as a young girl represent a unique chapter in American history, an era that was at once romantic and tragic.
Little Girl in the White House
Born on Nov. 27, 1957, near the end of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s first Senate term, Caroline was a toddler when her father accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960. She rushed to greet him when he returned to Hyannis Port from Los Angeles and was blinded by flashbulbs. The little girl burst into tears.
It was an auspicious press debut. The cameras, of course, loved the Kennedy children, and turned their White House life into a fairy tale tableau of charming antics and crisp outfits. But too often, publicity would coincide with unhappy events, and Caroline’s aversion to media attnetion would become her most marked trait well into adulthood.
For Caroline Kennedy, Nov. 22, 1963, came a few short months after the death of her baby brother Patrick, and days before her sixth birthday. She learned of her father’s death from her nanny, Maud Shaw, who told her, “Daddy has been shot and they took him to the hospital, but they couldn’t make him better.” Two days later, on Nov. 24, Caroline stood stoically next to her mother at the funeral. The little girl in a blue coat and red shoes who would soon enter a long hibernation from political life.
Political Hibernation
It lasted for a quarter century. Kennedy took up photography and studied fine arts at Harvard. She narrowly escaped an Irish Republican Army bomb while studying in London in 1975. She grew up on Fifth Avenue in New York City but was required by her mother to work during school vacations. She reportedly grew marijuana in her mother’s vegetable garden, and worked as a copy girl at the New York Daily News. But compared to the public antics of her showy brother John Jr., Caroline was a gossip column dud.
After college, Caroline took a job at the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts, where she met cultural historian Edwin Schlossberg. The two married in 1986 and have raised three children; Schlossberg now works as an interactive designer. Kennedy graduated at the top of her law school class at Columbia University and co-wrote two books about the Constitution, the 1991 bestseller, “In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action,” followed by “The Right to Privacy” in 1996. Kennedy participated in publicity tours to promote the works, but reporters were discouraged from asking personal questions.
When her mother Jackie died of cancer in 1994, Kennedy resisted releasing a press statement. When her brother died five years later, in a July 1999 plane crash, she refused a public funeral in favor of a smaller, private affair. "She got that horror of the press from me," her mother wrote to former JFK adviser Ted Sorenson, as quoted in his book “Counselor.” "She used to put her hands over her face when she saw cameramen."
But Kennedy’s brother’s death proved a turning point. ''She generally avoids press attention but she now is going to rise in prominence as the sole surviving member of that family,'' Darrell West, a political science professor at Brown University, predicted after John Jr.’s death. ''She is going to attract a lot of press attention whether she wants it or not.''
Coming Out
Over the past decade, Caroline has started to emerge from her shell. She spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2000 on behalf of Al Gore. "We need a president who is not afraid of complexity, who believes in an open and tolerant society, and who knows that the world can be made new again --- and that President is Al Gore," Kennedy told cheering Democrats.
She lent her time and name to philanthropic causes. Kennedy became honorary chair of the American Ballet Theater and the public face of the Profile in Courage Award, the annual event at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester, Mass. Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City public school system, credits her with helping to raise tens of millions of dollars to train teachers, stock libraries and meet other education needs.
Caroline published another book in 2003 that generated a touch of controversy. "A Patriot's Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love,” includes references to Grateful Dead songs and speeches by President George W. Bush, along with various Kennedys, including her father and uncles Bobby and Ted. Some liberal Democrats were steamed at the title’s red-state overtones. “She’s a Red, White and Blue Blood,” read the headline of a May 8, 2003 New York Daily News article. “It surprised me,” Kennedy told the newspaper of the flap. “I've always felt very patriotic. There's so much to celebrate here in our country. I felt it was a natural thing to do."
In a May 20, 2003, interview with CNN anchor Judy Woodruff, Kennedy elaborated. “Well, I didn't know that it was such a loaded title. In fact, it was my daughter who came up with the title and I thought she really captured the sense that, of course, it belongs to everybody,” Kennedy responded.
Endorsing Obama
All of that coverage was a warm-up to the Jan. 27, 2008, bomb that dropped on the op-ed page of the New York Times. “Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president,” Kennedy wrote. “This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.”
Days later, Kennedy joined her Uncle Ted at a rally with Obama, an appearance that had the effect of elevating an insurgent candidate to establishment status. In the coming months, Obama and Caroline Kennedy forged a warm bond, and she was tapped in June to lead his vice-presidential search team, along with now-Attorney General Eric Holder.
The Issues
Kennedy has staked out traditionally liberal positions on most social issues, at least those she has addressed in public.
She is pro-abortion rights and appears to oppose restrictions such as parental notification laws, although she has not directly addressed the issue of late-term abortions.
She is a “strong supporter” of gun control and wants to restore the federal ban on assault weapons.
Kennedy said she "opposed the Iraq war from the beginning” and advocates a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She believes that "an undivided Jerusalem must be the national capital of the state of Israel."
She opposes school vouchers but supports charter schools.
The Economy
Kennedy supports granting federal aid to the Big Three auto companies. she believes that the North American Free Trade Agreement has had "unintended, negative consequences in some regions of New York, and that is why she agrees with President Obama that we need to take a careful look at the agreement and pay particular attention to its impact on jobs and wages in American manufacturing communities."
Immigration
Kennedy agrees with her senator uncle that illegal immigrants should be allowed a path to citizenship.
“Caroline believes all undocumented workers should be required to legalize their presence in the United States and that we must create a way for them to do so,” according to her statement. “Undocumented workers should pay a fine, learn English and go to the back of the line behind those who came here legally.”
Gay Rights
On homosexual rights, she said in a statement that she backs "full equality and marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples,” a step beyond Clinton and Obama’s support for civil unions, but not marriage.
While her gay rights position could hurt her in the more conservative upstate region of New York, it has earned her valued support in liberal circles, raising the prospect that she will emerge as a high-profile advocate for progressive causes. “Caroline Kennedy's open support for marriage rights for gays and lesbians in an era when top liberal Democrats can't bring themselves to support it offers the best antidote to the Rick Warren blues yet,” wrote Huffington Post columnist Al Giordano, a reference to Obama’s selection of the conservative evangelical leader to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. “It is in the very best of Kennedy traditions.”
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