Sorry Caroline, but all's fair in politics

LIFE is unfair, John F. Kennedy famously said.

Most of her life, Caroline Kennedy experienced the protection that wealth and privilege bestow on very few. This week, she felt the sting that comes when expectations - fair or not - meet reality.

All JFK's daughter had to do was say she was interested in filling Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, and political pedigree turned her into the top contender for the job. That vaunted status also made her candidacy controversial. It didn't feel fair to others with more experience and less celebrity.

But Caroline Kennedy's personal awkwardness and verbal stumbles hurt her more than they would have hurt another candidate with less name recognition.

There's an unfairness to that, too, although not enough to allow sympathy for the princess of Camelot to outweigh disdain for the famous Kennedy sense of entitlement.

For voters of a certain age, there's a presumption that any Kennedy who seeks public office is prepared to pick up the torch that was dropped in Dallas. These voters are not thinking about the young Jack Kennedy who had to overcome his natural reserve when he ran for Congress in 1946. They are thinking about the mature, sophisticated politician who wowed Washington with wit, intelligence, and charisma. Caroline's father was also helped by a media universe much less complex than today's Internet-driven news, and much more forgiving.

Younger voters who do not remember where they were on the day JFK was shot because they weren't born just wonder what all the fuss is about. That creates another kind of challenge for younger Kennedys.

Caroline is not the first Kennedy to stumble verbally coming out of the gate. In Massachusetts, Senator Edward M. Kennedy has been the longtime anchor for the state's Democratic political establishment. His career in Washington dates back to JFK's administration and survived decades of scandal. But asked by TV newsman Roger Mudd why he wanted to be president in the run-up to the 1980 race, Kennedy had no cogent answer, which hobbled his quest to be president.

Last year's announcement that he suffers from brain cancer forced Democrats to consider life after Ted Kennedy. But there is little public discussion of that scenario, out of respect for his years of service and what remains of the Kennedy mystique.

Ted Kennedy's son Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island, has survived his own political setbacks. But the Kennedy name is a mixed blessing for other offspring, even in Massachusetts.

Joe Kennedy, the eldest son of Robert F. Kennedy, served six terms in Congress, representing Massachusetts' Eighth District. In 1997, he abandoned a gubernatorial campaign partly because of questions arising from a scandal involving a younger brother.

Max Kennedy, another son of RFK, got into the 2001 race to succeed Joe Moakley, the Massachusetts congressman from the Ninth District. But the Harvard graduate, who had worked for the Philadelphia district attorney's office, began his quest in underwhelming fashion. Early bumbling earned him unrelentingly negative press and he soon pulled out of the race, citing his three young children as the reason.

Caroline Kennedy occupies an even more unique spot in the Kennedy family tree. She is the only surviving child of a First Family that is an iconic touchstone for baby boomers.

Americans over age 50 remember Caroline and her brother, John-John, in the White House - or at least think they remember them, because of all the books, documentaries, and recycled news clips. They watched John F. Kennedy Jr. slice through the protective bubble his mother built around him, achieve celebrity in his own right, then die when the plane he was flying crashed in waters off Martha's Vineyard.

Caroline Kennedy lived the quiet, comfortable life of the New York rich. She raised her children, wrote books, and took up worthy causes. Last year, she endorsed then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in an opinion piece that was published in The New York Times on Jan. 27, 2008, under the headline, "A President Like My Father."

Her words helped pass the torch of a new generation to President Obama. But Kennedy won't be following him to Washington as a US senator. After an embarrassing and confusing sequence of events, she withdrew her name from consideration.

That's life. And in this case, it's fair.

Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com.