Kennedy's stealth campaign

CAROLINE KENNEDY went on a "listening tour" through upstate New York on Wednesday, meeting with the mayors of Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo to advance her bid for the US Senate seat soon to be vacated by Hillary Clinton. But the Senate hopeful may have been doing a bit too much listening and not enough speaking - to reporters, who mostly got the silent treatment from an overly coddled Kennedy.

Have Kennedy's handlers learned nothing from the plight of Sarah Palin, who was so tightly managed that the few outings she was allowed with the press became do-or-die missions that she invariably flubbed? It didn't take long for the story line to set in that Palin was ducking tough questions and not ready for prime time. Kennedy is no Sarah Palin - she is articulate and temperamentally modest to begin with - but she faces some of the same obstacles in persuading the public, and New York Governor David A. Paterson, that she has enough experience to do the job.

Local coverage of Kennedy's swing through upstate was mostly breathless, but one video of her dash to a waiting limo in Buffalo did not help her cause. She stonewalled respectful and rather innocuous questions - "What is it about this position that interests you now?" "Do you have a position on the bailout program?" - while dark-suited aides created a flying wedge of protection that ushered her down the steps.

It is true that Kennedy is in an awkward position, because she does not want to appear to be openly campaigning when the decision on whom to appoint is Paterson's alone. But that's the trouble: An actual public campaign would test Kennedy's skill and readiness, and give her a chance to disprove the skeptics. Hillary Clinton's did.