Posted by
Crescen7(Regis Matejcik) on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 3:24:39 PM
Much has been made in previous weeks about Caroline Kennedy's lack of qualifications for Senate. She's never held elective office, and she seems to say "you know" a lot. Ipso facto, so the logic goes....... She's not qualified to be a Senator.
This logic seems rather peculiar.
It seems many have the mistaken belief that there are extensive qualifications required to be a Senator. Few things are farther from the truth. There are, in fact, almost no qualifications required to be a Senator. More importantly, the tasks required of a Senator are breathtakingly simple. The only thing a Senator actually does, is vote. There vote is either yes - or - no (or I guess "present" if you're really stumped). There vote is never more than 1 in 100, and in almost every case the vote is cast along with the already established "Party Position." To be sure, there are a few "Maverick" Senate votes, but far fewer than one might imagine. One can vote along party lines more than 90% of the time and still claim to be a "Maverick."
So, about those qualifications . . .
It seems that by "qualifications" for Senate what is commonly referred to as qualifications is the ability to parlay legislative influence into campaign contributions to further solidify ones political power and stature. The only other observable "qualification" would be to become adept at guiding mal-invested public funds to ones own state for the purpose of garnering greater public support for re-election. Is it really so terrible that we might have a Senator that lacks these "qualifications ?"
From a practical standpoint, Caroline Schlossberg is an attorney, she has written extensively, and served on the boards of several non-profit organizations. While this resume may not be overwhelming, one must also remember that there don't seem to be any bright red flags in the background of JFK's daughter. She has no apparent history of shady real estate deals with convicted felons, there don't seem to be any admitted terrorists in her "posse", her religious inspirations haven't come from America hating wacko's, and she's not been involved in a U.S. attorney's office sting for trying to buy the Senate seat.
Face it people, she's as qualified and capable as any of the other pompous, self centered, ego- manical, occupants of Senate. Besides that, she's not half bad looking. What's the real problem ? Many states have customarily made the wife of a Senator the acting Senator in the event of a death in office. Surely Mrs. Schlossberg is as qualified as most Senator's wifes. She'll have to actually "run" for the office in 2010 - if she's so bad - she'll get voted out.
Let's back off of Caroline Kennedy and rather use the opportunity to explain how there are no real qualifications required to be a Senator, which in turn means; being a Senator for a long time is not really a qualification for anything - especially the Presidency of the United States.