Caroline Kennedy qualified, most Americans say

A majority of Americans believe that Caroline Kennedy is qualified to be a US senator, according to a new poll out today.

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, 52 percent said the daughter of President John F. Kennedy is qualified to serve, while 42 percent said she is not qualified. While men were evenly divided, women said she is qualified, by a 57 percent to 37 percent count.

Those numbers are somewhat lower than for Hillary Clinton when she ran for the US Senate seat from New York. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey, more than 60 percent of Americans said the former first lady was qualified.

Now, Clinton is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for secretary of state, and Governor David Paterson has the sole power to appoint her replacement. Caroline Kennedy, who has never run for or held elective office, has worked in education reform, but until campaigning for Obama this year had stayed largely out of the public eye.

In the sharp-elbowed world of New York politics, even some fellow Democrats have questioned her qualifications. The poll was conducted before she did a series of newspaper and TV interviews over the weekend to make her case.

Some skeptics have also noted her frequent use of "you know" during the interviews, more than 140 times during her sit-down with the New York Times, according to one count.