Sorry, Caroline, We're Over Political Dynasties: Klein

Caroline Kennedy used to be described as “self-effacing,” but now that she’s signaled her interest in Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, she’s shown she has another “eminently New York quality,” Joe Klein writes in Time: chutzpah. Kennedy assumes that America still loves its dynasties, but when Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton, it proved that “the Era of Big Strange Political Families was over.”

Obama embodies this change, and he's impressed Klein by appointing people “outside the standard political fast-food menu.” David Paterson should do likewise, “if he hasn't already been bum-rushed into the Kennedy coronation.” (More Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg stories.)