Kennedy says 9/11, Obama inspired her

Caroline Kennedy ended weeks of near-silence Friday about her bid for a Senate seat by saying that after a lifetime of closely guarded privacy, she felt compelled to answer the call to service issued by her father a generation ago.

She said two events shaped her decision to ask New York Gov. David A. Paterson to consider her for the position if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is confirmed as secretary of State: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and her work for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

In her first interview since she emerged as a Senate hopeful, the 51-year-old daughter of President Kennedy cited her father’s legacy in explaining why she wanted to serve alongside her uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

“Many people remember that spirit that President Kennedy summoned forth,” she said. “Many people look to me as somebody who embodies that sense of possibility. I’m not saying that I am anything like him; I’m just saying there’s a spirit that I think I’ve grown up with that is something that means a tremendous amount to me.”

She also credited her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, with giving her the courage to seek the job.

“I think my mother . . . made it clear that you have to live life by your own terms and you have to not worry about what other people think, and you have to have the courage to do the unexpected,” she said.

Since Kennedy expressed interest in the job, she has faced some sharp criticism. She has been accused of cutting in line ahead of politicians with more experience and acting as if she were entitled to the job because of her political lineage.

More than half a dozen elected officials are vying for the seat, including New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo and several members of Congress.

Kennedy said she realized she would have to prove herself and “work twice as hard as anybody else.” She said she was “an unconventional choice,” but added, “We’re starting to see there are many ways into public life and public service.”

Since Kennedy’s name first surfaced as a possible replacement for Clinton, her advisors have shielded her from the media, with the exception of brief interviews on a swing through upstate New York and a visit to Harlem with the Rev. Al Sharpton.

She agreed to sit down for interviews Friday with the Associated Press and NY1 television.

Kennedy acknowledged that her time in the limelight -- after a relatively private life as a wife, mother, bestselling author and fundraiser in New York -- had not gone entirely smoothly.

But she said she had turned down interview requests and tried not to appear to be campaigning for the job because she knew the choice rested solely with the Democratic governor.

“I was trying to respect the process,” she said. “It is not a campaign. . . . If I were to be selected, I understand public servants have to be accessible.”

She was asked to explain why she failed to vote in a number of elections since registering in New York in 1988, including in 1994 when Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was up for reelection for the seat she hopes to take over.

“I was really surprised and dismayed by my voting record,” she said. “I’m glad it’s been brought to my attention.”

Kennedy chuckled when she was asked if her brother, the late John F. Kennedy Jr., had ever suggested she run for public office.

“He usually thought about himself,” she said. “He would be laughing his head off at seeing what’s going on right now.”