Posted on 07/06/2008 6:37:59 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
It's "her time" to get into the family business.
Caroline Kennedy's high-profile appointment to Barack Obama's vice-presidential search team was orchestrated in a deal brokered by her famous uncle, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, in exchange for his endorsement, The Post has learned.
It was the result of Carolina, a 50-year-old Harvard grad, indicating to her now-ailing uncle that it was "her time" to get into politics, insiders told The Post.
JFK's daughter is looking to get her feet wet in political affairs, sources said, including the possibility she could one day run for office in some capacity or accept a position within an Obama administration.
"Caroline was part of the deal" for Ted's surprise backing of Obama, an immediate family member said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
DEAL OR NO DEAL: Barack Obama, on the campaign trail with Caroline Kennedy, put her on his veep-search team as part of a deal after getting Ted Kennedy's endorsement."
Some have speculated that Ted would tap her to succeed him in his Senate seat if he decided to retire in the near future. The 76-year-old senator was briefly hospitalized in May after a round of seizures and has since undergone surgery for a brain tumor.
The ruling families.
Is being a member of the Kennedy family a full time job? What other qualifications does she have?
Is that the getting drunk business, or drowning young women in the back seat of a car business?
What did the US do to get cursed with the Kennedy’s?
Teddy said he’d like to see his wife, the lovely Vicki, serve out his term. (I seem to recall that her brother is a convicted felon.)
Meet the new Senator from Mass
She should fit right in, then.
Sort of reminds one of Michael Corleone, back from the war, with Sonny dead, taking over the family.
Once Uncle Teddy’s finally gone to account for himself before St. Peter, I think it’ll be over for the Kennedy’s too, despite his best efforts to keep the legacy going. People are just sick of them!
Yeah, & after Caroline comes Chelsea.
We need a revolution!
LOL...sometimes I just crack myself up...
You’re just wasting your effort on one of FR’s chronic nitpickers. Some people just live for that.
The fundamental sin: stupidity.
It's probably a manifestation of sloth--just being too lazy to think. I say that because it's hard to believe that many people are just plain stupid.
The battle for the democrat nomination can be seen as the battle between the Clinton’s and the Kennedy’s for control of the democrat party.
No wonder Zell Miller refused to support John F’in Kerry in ‘04, and I doubt he’ll be supporting Obama-lama-ding-dong this year.
“Michael Corleone’ — Yes, the BIG difference for the Kennedys, so sorry Charlie, is that this is a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and you have to be elected to office.
Yeah, as in, "Breathe into the bubble, Mary Jo. I'll be back Tuesday."
“Meet the new Senator from Mass.”
You mean watch out Hillary. Meet the new Senator from New York. Hope Caroline stays close to home. Caroline Kennedy running against Hillary Clinton is worth the price of admission. Popcorn anyone?
>>Some have speculated that Ted would tap her to succeed him in his Senate seat if he decided to retire in the near future.<<
So in Massachusetts, Senate seats are inherited, not voted on?
Oh, no!
NOT ANOTHER STUPID Kennedy!
Say it isn’t so.
None, but qualifications don't matter in the Democratic Party. All that's required is a strong belief in the power of big government.
JFK’s First Campaign
-1-
- Having tried and failed, Joe Kennedy knew he could never become president, but his sons could. He quenched his thirst for power through them.
- Joe had hoped that his eldest son, Joe Jr would fulfill his dream. That dream ended in August 1944 when Joe Jr, a Navy pilot, was killed after volunteering for a dangerous secret bombing mission. Columnist and family friend Arthur Krock was convinced that the reason Joe Jr had volunteered for such a dangerous mission was to compensate for his father’s reputation as a coward.
-2-
- In Palm Beach during Christmas of 1944, Joe gave his son Jack the orders: He was to take Joe Jr’s place and enter politics. In 1957, Jack described the event, telling a reporter: “It was like being drafted. My father wanted his eldest son in politics. ‘Wanted’ isn’t the right word. He demanded it.”
- Joe would later brag that “I got Jack into politics. I told him that Joe Jr was deceased and that it was therefore his responsibility to run for Congress.”
-3-
- In 1946, Joe Kennedy decided that the eleventh congressional district of Massachusetts, with it’s high concentration of Catholic voters, would be the perfect launching pad for his son Jack’s political career. There was only one problem: James Michael Curley, the former mayor of Boston and governor of Massachusetts, occupied the seat. Curley, however, was in danger of being indicted for mail fraud, and Joe decided that what the man needed most was some money.
- “Curley knew he was in trouble with the feds over the mail fraud rap,” recalled Kennedy’s friend Joe Kane. “The ambassador paid him to get out of his congressional seat......Curley figured that he might need the money.”
- Joe paid Curley $12,000 through his bag man Joe Timilty. He promised additional campaign help if Curley chose to run again for mayor of Boston in the 1946 election, which Curley did. After being elected, Curley was sent to prison for mail fraud. He continued to serve from prison.
- To Joe, this was standard operating procedure, recalled Kane. “Everything he got, he bought and paid for. And politics is like war. It takes three things to win. The first is money and the second is money and the third is money.”
-4-
- On April 25, 1946, Jack Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to Congress. The next month, Joe founded the Joseph P Kennedy Jr Foundation which began furiously pumping money into Catholic institutions in Jack’s adopted district. The timing was not a coincidence, and led one Massachusetts congressman to describe the gifts as “political currency.”
- Joe’s main job now became running his son’s campaign. In effect, he was the candidate, devising campaign strategy and making every financial and policy decision. To conceal his own role and the extent of Jack’s financing, Joe paid for everything clandestinely and in cash.
- David Powers, who ran Jack’s Charlestown headquarters described how Joe’s aide would meet him “at the campaign’s central headquarters, and then lead me into the men’s room, where, putting a dime into the slot, he would take me into a closed toilet stall. Then, with no one able to watch us, he would hand me the cash, saying, ‘You can never be too careful in politics about handing over money.”
- Joe also arranged for Jack to receive a salary from the Maine and New Hampshire Theaters Company, which he owned. Joe could then deduct it as a business expense. In addition, two of Joe’s theater employees took care of all the campaign expenses. For example, if Jack needed a rental car, he simply charged it to Joe’s theater company.
-5-
- Jack’s opponent in the primary election was a legitimate politician named Joe Russo. To insure that Jack won the primary campaign, Joe Kennedy paid Joseph Russo, a janitor, to also enter the race. This effectively confused the voters, and split the votes for Joe Russo.
- Russo the janitor recalled how Joe’s friend Joseph Timilty and another man had visited him one day and asked him to run. In return, Russo said, “They offered me favors. Whatever I wanted.” In fact, he said later, he wound up getting very little - occasional payments of $50 in cash.
- Even the aunt of the real candidate voted for the janitor, recalled Joseph A Russo, the real candidate’s son. “They didn’t leave anything unturned,” he said. His father claimed that Kennedy’s people had also arranged for other bogus candidates to “run in other areas to break up the Irish vote, or some other vote. They played for keeps.”
- After Jack won the Democratic primary, Joe sold Somerset Importers Inc, freeing $8 million to help Jack in his campaign and insuring that his liquor holdings would not become an issue.
-6-
- Just as he had done with the rent for Jack’s campaign offices, Joe paid cash for Jack’s advertising. John T Galvin, who was in charge of the advertising, recalled that “It was handled so that very few people knew.....There was a campaign law that limited campaign contributions. It didn’t affect us very much.”
- Joe also received crucial support from his friends in the media. For example, William Randolph Hearst, who owned the Boston American newspaper, had one of his reporters check in at Jack’s headquarters every day. No other candidate got such special attention. Joe also got Hearst to ignore Jack’s opponent Michael Neville, the mayor of Cambridge, and the paper would not accept his advertising.
-7-
- Joe spent $300,000 on Jack’s first campaign, according to House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill, equivalent to $2.2 million today. O’Neill said that the sum was six times what he himself spent in the same district during a tough race six years later. In O’Neill’s view, Joe was the “real force” behind the Kennedys.
- “Joe Kennedy was an ongoing factor in Massachusetts politics,” O’Neill said. “Every time a Democrat ran for governor, he would go down to see Joe, who would always send him home with a briefcase full of cash.”
- On November 5, 1946, Jack Kennedy was elected to Congress. Seven days later, he filed a report with the Massachusetts secretary of state certifying that no money had been collected for, or had been spent on his campaign.
[ Back to Top ] - [ Y Ted K - HOME ]
- The race was still a toss-up when Joe Kennedy learned that John Fox, owner of the powerful Boston Post, was in desperate need of money. The Boston Post, which had a circulation of over 300,000, had been credited with helping defeat Michael Curley in his last campaign in 1949, and with being responsible for getting Maurice Tobin elected governor of Massachusetts. Under Fox, the Boston Post favored Republicans. The newspaper had endorsed Eisenhower for president, and was expected to endorse Lodge. Indeed, those close to Fox confirmed that he “hated JFK.”
- Fox had bought the Boston Post in 1952 for about $4 million. As a down payment, Fox had paid $2 million for the newspaper, but the IRS immediately took it for back payment of his own taxes. The publisher soon found himself unable to pay his bills.
-2-
- It was generally assumed that the Boston Post would endorse Lodge, but Fox was desperate for funds, and Joe Kennedy was only too happy to help out. Two days before the election, following a private meeting with Joe Kennedy, Fox gave a front-page endorsement for JFK.
- Former Massachusetts state senator Robert L Lee said the Post endorsement of JFK was the “turning point” in the campaign. Lee believed that if Lodge had received the paper’s endorsement, it “would have been sufficient to put him back in the Senate.”
-3-
- During a House subcommittee hearing in 1958, Fox admitted that Joe Kennedy had given him a $500,000 loan late in 1952. He insisted that he “repaid it with interest,” and that it had nothing to do with his paper’s endorsement of Jack. Joe issued a statement saying that the loan - the equivalent of $2.7 million today - was “purely a commercial transaction for 60 days only with full collateral, at full interest, and was fully repaid on time.....”
- Raymond Faxon, Fox’s friend and vice president of the publisher’s investment business, revealed the truth about the transaction for the first time years later.
- Faxon revealed that two days before the election, John Griffin, the editor-in-chief of the Boston Post, informed Joe that the paper was about to endorse Lodge. He also told him that Fox was desperately in need of cash, having been turned down for a loan by local banks. Joe called Fox and asked him to meet at a local club which Fox owned. In return for an endorsement of Jack, Joe offered Fox a loan that, contrary to what both men later said, carried no interest and was not fully collateralized. “Fox needed the money, and he got it from Joe,” Faxon said. “It was $500,000. The whole thing was a payoff.”
- Based on Faxon’s recollection that a bank would have charged interest of about 5 percent at the time, the interest waived amounted to about $10,000, the equivalent of $54,000 today. Aside from that, making any loan to such a shaky financial operation without full collateral represented a bribe. “No bank would have made the loan,” Faxon said. “The word ‘payoff’ was exactly what it was.”
-4-
- Now that Joe had gotten Jack elected to the Senate, he told his son to find a wife. In May 1952, Jack Kennedy had been introduced to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. When Jack brought Jackie to Hyannis Port in the spring following the election, Joe decided she would be Jack’s wife.
- Jackie had “all the social ingredients that Joe Kennedy thought would help Jack achieve the presidency,” wrote C David Heymann in A Woman Named Jackie. As usual, Jack did what his father told him to do, and on June 24, 1953 the couple announced their engagement.
-Jack’s friend Lem Billings said, “Joe Kennedy not only condoned the marriage,
he ordained it.”
Whoa dude.....!!
That looks like Jon Carry in drag.......
Being elected isn't all that difficult when the democRAT "family" owns 90% of the print media, 80% of television news media, and most of radio outside of a few talk shows (and they want to silence those also).
When Teddy was getting ready to marry her, Rush said the bride was registered at Scuba World.
prohibition.
WIFE-O-BUCKHEAD
Hard to believe the American Revolution was started by the good patriots of Taxachusetts!
I've always kind of held Caroline and her brother apart and respected them even though their politics do not mesh with mine, and can't see myself bashing her ever, but you said it. That is the hypocrisy of liberals and, sad to say some Republicans, have enough money to escape it. Would her father really have gone along with abortion and other life issues and some of the other liberal changes in the party since his life was ended? I'm really trying to understand where they are coming from.
I think it's the Irish Catholic in that family that has played a big part in their original choice of parties; I think there is bitterness towards Republicans and the heritage of some of us "others" going way back. But that doesn't explain why so many wealthy cling so tenatiously to the Democrat Party; the most outspoken and wealthy of them do not have lives affected like mine has been, so I'm not some elite Republican by any means. And I'm not a goose stepping Republican either. Why oh why do they push for such liberal, socialistic policies when they don't have to live it themselves or are unaffected by the consequences? The price of gas, for instance, would be nothing to them. But life issues, don't get me started, can't fathom it, know nothing is likely to change, still there are principles.
Would her father have gone along with what that party has transitioned into? Probably. It isn't all about their Catholicism by any means, and I've been a Catholic and hold many of their teachings dear.
One word: Prohibition. Turned a two-bit crook and scumbag into a wealthy man who could buy his family's way into politics.
So basically Kennedy Sr. was a bootlegger? I have never done that much research into the Kennedy clan as I didn’t really care to. Now that you guys mention it I think I will look more into that family of crooks.
Its thirst for Canadian Scotch mostly. This family may be perceived as saintly, but right now the vast majority of the Kennedy males are getting their reward for their debauchery, and soon Teddy will know! Kennedy's don't trump God, and have no elected members in heaven!
Plus friends like Sam Giancana will help with the power play.
As a woman, that has happened to me, I didn't want to cause a ruckus, but it has stayed with me, the feeling. There's nothing scandalous in and of itself by a woman riding in front with a man married to someone else. Maybe it wasn't that, guess we'll never know.
Jackie must be rolling in her grave.
That “family business” attitude really pisses me off. Representation is not a “family business” in this country. If it was, we would be a monarchy by definition.
“Caroline was part of the deal” for Ted’s surprise backing of Obama”
Veep?
wouldn’t that be an interesting contest...ck vs hc
qualifications? none.
did she say her time... or her TURN???
Family BIZ in deed. thats the way they look at it too... as a Business and nothing else. a slip of the tongue?
This makes me sick, I had hoped Caroline could finish out her life away from the cesspool of politics, I guess its just not to be.
Do you know some good sources (links, articles, books, etc.) where I could get started?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.