Kennedy Seeks Public Life After Years of Protecting Privacy

Dec. 16, 2008— -- Caroline Kennedy, the last scion of one of America's most famous political families who, for years, has led an intensely private life, announced she will seek the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

After weeks of speculation that New York Gov. David Paterson was considering Kennedy for Clinton's seat, Kennedy broke her silence on the matter and called the governor to declare her interest.

"She told me she was interested in the position," Paterson told reporters Monday. "She'd like at some point to sit down and tell me what she thinks her qualifications are."

If Clinton is approved by the Senate to become President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of state, Paterson will name her successor.

A lawyer and author who has never held even the lowest elected office, and who in recent years has been known as much for compiling poetry anthologies as for promoting public service, Kennedy has begun a campaign to prove she is qualified.

But beyond proving her credentials, Kennedy must also prove she has the stomach for public life, capable of weathering the attention of her constituents and the scrutiny of the national and local media -- a marked departure from her life thus far.

First shielded from photographers' flashbulbs by her mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, following the assassination of her father, President John F. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy has spent a lifetime cultivating a low profile, dodging curiosity seekers, shunning interview requests and sometimes even refusing to read aloud her books at promotional events.

Friends and biographers say Kennedy's lifelong desire to stay out of the spotlight began with her mother, who tried to keep Caroline and her brother John F. Kennedy Jr. out of the tabloids.

"Her mother was intensely private, and Caroline was brought up in a way that avoided unnecessary publicity," said Ted Sorensen, speechwriter and special counsel to President Kennedy and longtime friend of the family.

"She had no great hunger for public life or the publicity that comes with it," he said.

Caroline and her mother began retreating from the public view soon after President Kennedy's death in 1963, and receded further after the murder of her uncle, Sen. Robert Kennedy, who occupied the same New York Senate seat she now seeks.