Caroline Kennedy Endorses Barack Obama: 'A President Like My Father'

Wonderful news from Caroline Kennedy, the intentionally low-profile daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, and the only surviving member of that memorable First Family.

The title of her endorsement is - frankly - beautiful, stunning and extraordinarily moving.  The text of her endorsement is even more so.

A President Like My Father.  

Keep reading. . .

She announced her endorsement for Senator Obama in an op-ed in the New York Times slated for publication tomorrow (Sunday) -- excerpt below.  I only hope hers is the first in a long list of prominent endorsements of Obama in the coming days after his huge win in South Carolina today.

A President Like My Father

By Caroline Kennedy

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama.
. . .

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

SOURCE

•  diaries two down from yours...

  by VirginiaDem on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:54:10 PM PDT

  •  You even beat me out with the first comment

    Was going to delete this diary but will leave it up only because of some of the thoughtful comments in it

    by RobertInWisconsin on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 06:51:42 PM PDT

•  'A President Like My Father'

  . . . wow . . . just wow.

  by RobertInWisconsin on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:54:41 PM PDT

  •  Fantastic! nt

    by DAVE DIAL on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:59:28 PM PDT

    •  Obama needs...

      Obama needs to get Carolyn out there front and center saying that shit, right now, out in public, on TV shows -- hell, book her on Oprah! That statement, if Obama's campaign can get her and it out there, will have such resonance with a LOT of people. Wow is right on.

      by Brian Bell on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 06:03:15 PM PDT

  •  Oh...oh...

    I had no idea that Obama was a cold warrior willing to bet the future of the human race on a rush of testosterone.

    I hope Ms. Kennedy is wrong about that.

    I don't think we have too much to worry about though.   It's not like Obama's daddy made him, and I very much doubt that a President Obama will be bringing a man like Joe McCarthy into his family.

    by NNadir on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 06:09:41 PM PDT

    •  Oh phooey on that

      (even if it was largely true)

      JFK made the pretty young matron who was my mother jump out of her shoes when his motorcade passed by on a Milwaukee street.  Now the sight of Barack Obama makes her sit straight up in her La-Z-Boy.  He's exciting!

      "I knew when I saw Kennedy that he really would be president," she told me last year.  "And I know that Obama is going to be president, too.  Mark my words."

      by rhubarb on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 06:24:31 PM PDT

      •  I have no dog to hunt here.

        If Obama's the candidate, I will vote for him.

        That said, I really despise the idea that sex should sell a President.

        Kennedy was a lousy President.   When Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream" speech, Kennedy was three blocks away watching the whole thing on television.

        Now, if I were to vote in 1960 in the general election, I would have voted for Kennedy, but only because Nixon was Nixon.

        I would have held my nose and hoped for the best.

        I am undecided in my own up and coming primary (super Tuesday) election here, but I'm almost certain that I will not be voting for Obama.   I don't, for the record, feel constrained to vote for any of the candidates that have one previous primaries.   For the record, the my last primary vote, I voted for Howard Dean, even though he had dropped out of the election by that point.

        The primary is the last opportunity one has to vote one's conscience, and I intend to exercise it.

        by NNadir on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 06:40:12 PM PDT

        •  I voted for Dean, too

          although he was out by the time Wisconsin voted.  Did the same for Tsongas in '92 . . . and voted McCain in '00 (well . . . Gore had it sewn up, and I wanted to stop Bush).

          I am voting Obama because I like the possibilities he suggests (and which HRC does not bring to the table)

          Has nothing to do with sex appeal, and I daresay my mother was not interested in JFK's sex appeal, nor Obama's, either.  Sometimes I think one has to just bet on a candidate who shows some promise, even if it is only the promise of persuasiveness.

          In Obama's case, I hopethat he is able to turn our politics 90 degrees to everything else and start us on a totally new and beneficial trajectory, in Iraq, in energy, in infrastructure, in education, etc.  Tall order, I know.

          I don't share your completely dim view of JFK--he did some real good.  I don't go in for the systematic deification that started in 1964, though, and which some people still labor under.  But JFK did do plenty of good things, and exercised good judgment in tough situations, at times.

          by rhubarb on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 07:04:36 PM PDT

          •  Well, if Obama's the nominee, I will hope for the

            best.

            Usually the Repuke field is appalling, but this year is the worst since, well, 2004 and 2000.

            The last President from Illinois was the greatest President by almost all measures.   If he is elected to office, one hopes that Obama will rise to greatness as the last Illinoian to occupy the White House.   The next term will demand greatness, because the current occupant of the White House is the worst occupant since James Buchanan, and that's no mean trick.

            I have some beefs with Obama's energy policies, but it's not like there is a single thing about the guy that could be worse than any member of the Repuke field.

            As for I am hard pressed to think of a single good thing that JFK did though.   From my perspective, he was a useless sybarite.   If one evokes the Cuban Missle Crisis, one is almost in the position of applauding an arsonist who has been spectacularly heroic saving people from the fire he started.   I honestly believe that with a different cabinet - minus, for instance, McNamara, the Don Rumsfeld of his times - Lyndon Johnson might have achieved true greatness.

            Nobody is happy that JFK was assassinated, but he was easily the worst Democratic President of the 20th century.

            I do not, for a moment, think of Obama as a sybarite of the same calibre as JFK.

            by NNadir on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 07:23:47 PM PDT

            •  Good things JFK did

              JFK took on the steel industry - calling them greedy, and investigated price fixing.

              JFK tried to reach out to Kruschev and Castro to lessen tensions. Knowing that could get him killed, he did it through backchannels and surrogates.

              JFK tried to ease poverty in Latin America caused by private lenders. He wanted to circumvent the Rockefeller and Morgan bank interests and offer government to government loans, so that our democratic government would have some say re loan repayment, rather than private money men whose only concern was profit.

              JFK set up the DIA in an attempt to corral the CIA's unsupervised covert activities. The DIA was in the military command chain, where intelligence activities would be supervised and controlled. (This really pissed off the CIA.)

              JFK started the Peace Corp, showing the world America was willing to invest in other countries via peaceful, not forceful, means.

              JFK has gotten a bad rap from the media. But a little reading will quickly show why he was revered not just in America, but in the world, and why his assassination was mourned as an international event.

              by BetterTogether on Sun Jan 27, 2008 at 05:06:41 PM PDT

•  sorry

  turneresq beat you by three minutes.

  it's hard to get a scoop around here.

  by TrueBlueMajority on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:55:44 PM PDT

•  Sweet Caroline!

  Hands...touching hands...reaching out...touching you...touching me!

  Good times never seemed so good!

  by Viceroy on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:56:05 PM PDT

•  He plays to the best part in all of us

  not on fear, or the divisions of the past

  by elephantitis on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:56:35 PM PDT

•  That actually brought a tear to my eye

  And I ain't the crying kind.  

  What an awesome endorsement.

  by Guy Fawkes on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:57:01 PM PDT

  •  Best endorsement yet... so poignant

    Our... constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds. Thurgood Marshall

    by bronte17 on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:57:56 PM PDT

  •  Wait'll we see Ted Kennedy's endorsement tomorrow

    Seriously, for Obama to have pulled in Caroline, who never speaks out, and Ted Kennedy, is really an amazing coup. That's almost bigger than SC, were it not for the tremendous size of that victory!

    by BetterTogether on Sun Jan 27, 2008 at 04:57:26 PM PDT

•  AMEN....IT IS REALLY TIME FOR CHANGE...

  by icebergslim on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:58:26 PM PDT

•  Thank you..

  I don't mind if you have posted something someone else got in here..this is the first time I am seeing this and I thank you for posting it...I am in tears..tears..I know this is going to happen..each time of challenge brings us a person who can bring out the best in people..that is what we need..not an executive..or an accomplished technician..we need hope..

  by RubyGal on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 05:58:34 PM PDT

•  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

  This is the perfect news for a great night.  It's the dark chocolate icing on a triple layer fudge cake!  

  GO OBAMA!!!

  by madame defarge on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 06:04:19 PM PDT

•  An RFK in our time!

  I have goosebumps. Wow!
  Never thought I'd see it. But I always hoped.

  by greenchiledem on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 06:12:12 PM PDT