what's in a senate seat?

Well, according to Governor Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000. But I'll leave Blagojevich's questionable political dealings vis-a-vis Obama's vacant Senate seat, which may not even have been strictly illegal under America's delightfully vague definitions of political corruption, for others to analyze. Instead, I'm going to discuss that other Senate seat soon to be left open by a former Democratic candidate for president. Caroline Kennedy seems to be the likely front-runner, now that she's officially declared her interest in the office. Her bid has been met with some (deserved) degree of skepticism. In fact, the best thing I've actually heard in her favor is that she'll help maintain the half-century long tradition of having a Kennedy in the Senate. As an added bonus, she'll bring some star power and name recognition to the office, à la Hillary Clinton. The most innocent benefit of this idea being, of course, that it would keep someone in New York's junior Senate seat who would command a great deal of power and respect. Oh, and the fact that being able to vote Kennedy-Patterson may help Patterson win his re-election bid. The New York Times ran an article today originally titled "Resume Long on Politics, but Short on Public Office" The name of the article was changed at some point this morning to "Kennedy's Credentials are Debated in Senate Bid," perhaps because the article failed to name a single way that Kennedy's resume was long on anything save charity board membership. First among the grievances against Kennedy is the fact that she has never been elected to public office and, until the Obama campaign, was not particularly drawn to that perennial political call of the Kennedy clan.

What I find most disturbing is the continuing trend in politics that power female figures must derive their clout from name association and familial ties. Hillary, let us remember, despite some level of disapproving noise from her camp in reference to the prospect of a Kennedy pick, had never been elected to political office before running for the New York Senate seat in 2000. While Clinton was clearly far more qualified than Kennedy is (given the fact that, you know, she'd be highly involved in politics since her early days at Wellesley (where she was president of, wait for it, the Young Republicans her freshman year). However, there is something distressing about the fact that when the Democrats turn to find a powerful female leader, the first place they look is at the wives and daughters of established (male) politicians.