The New York Senate Seat

When Carline Kennedy withdrew from consideration for the soon-to-be-vacated New York Senate seat, I was somewhat skeptical of her alleged personal reason for withdrawal (initially reported to be concern for the health of her uncle, Ted Kennedy). Her nose-diving popularity and general mishandling of a political situation where she began as the far-and-away front-runner seemed a more likely cause. Furthermore, the whole gendered concept of her withdrawing because of her uncle's health generally irked my feminist sensibilities (can anyone imagine, say, Bill Clinton abandoning political aspirations under such circumstances?). So, you can imagine my delight in discovering that, apparently (according to such laudable and reliable sources as gawker and rightpundits.com), her "personal" reasons for withdrawing concerned her affair with New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. Hopefully, she wasn't relying on this affair to receive decent press coverage). While the fact that our female politicians are now engaging in at least some level of morally ambiguous extra-marital sexual relations in an attempt to match their male counterparts may gave some hope to feminism, it is important to keep in mind the fact that this would never (unless it was publicly revealed by an outside source) be the cause for any man to step down from consideration of political office (it didn't seem to bother John Edwards during his latest failed presidential bid).