Caroline Kennedy
Kennedy in 2008
Born	Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (1957-11-27) November 27, 1957 (age 54) New York, New York, U.S.
Alma mater	Harvard University (A.B.) Columbia Law School (J.D.)
Occupation	Attorney Author
Political party	Democratic
Religion	Roman Catholic[1]
Spouse	Edwin Arthur Schlossberg (m. 1986) «start: (1986)»"Marriage: Edwin Arthur Schlossberg to Caroline Kennedy" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Caroline_Kennedy)
Children	Rose (born 1988) Tatiana (born 1990) John (born 1993)
Parents	John F. Kennedy Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy^[2][3] (born November 27, 1957)^[4] is an American author and attorney. She is a member of the influential Kennedy family and the only surviving child of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

At the time of her father's presidency she was a young child; after his assassination in 1963 her family settled in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where she attended school. Kennedy graduated from Radcliffe College and worked at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg. She went on to receive a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School. Kennedy's professional life has spanned law and politics as well as education and charitable work. She has also acted as a spokesperson for her family's legacy and co-authored two books on civil liberties with Ellen Alderman.

In the 2008 presidential election, Kennedy endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President early in the primary race; she later stumped for him in Orlando, Indiana, and Ohio, served as co-chair of his Vice Presidential Search Committee, and addressed the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.^[5] After Obama's selection of then-Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Kennedy expressed interest in being appointed to Clinton's vacant Senate seat from New York, but she later withdrew from consideration, citing "personal reasons."^[6]

Early life and childhood[link]

Caroline with her father aboard the "Honey Fitz", off Hyannis Port, Massachusetts in August 1963.

A year after her parents had a stillborn daughter named Arabella, Kennedy was born at Cornell Medical Center in New York City. She was named after both her maternal aunt, Caroline Lee Bouvier Radziwill, and her maternal great-grandmother, Caroline Ewing Bouvier. Her younger brother, John, Jr., was born three years later. A second brother, Patrick, died of a lung ailment two days after his premature birth on August 9, 1963. Caroline and John, Jr. lived with their parents in the Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Georgetown. On January 20, 1961, when Caroline was three, her father was inaugurated as President of the United States and the family moved into the White House. Caroline attended kindergarten in classes organized by her mother and was often photographed riding her pony Macaroni around the White House grounds. A photo of a young Caroline with Macaroni in a news article inspired singer-songwriter Neil Diamond to write his hit song "Sweet Caroline," a fact he revealed only when performing it for her 50th birthday in November 2007.^[7] As a small child in the White House, she was the recipient of numerous gifts from dignitaries including a puppy from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and a Yucatán pony from Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.^[8] Historians described Caroline's personality as a child as "a trifle remote and a bit shy at times" yet "remarkably unspoiled."^[9] "She's too young to realize all these luxuries", Rose Kennedy said of her granddaughter. "She probably thinks it's natural for children to go off in their own airplanes. But she is with her cousins, and some of them dance and swim better than she. They do not allow her to take special precedence. Little children accept things." ^[10]

On the day of their father's assassination on November 22, 1963, nanny Maud Shaw took Caroline and John, Jr. away from the White House to the home of their maternal grandmother, Janet Auchincloss, who insisted that Shaw be the one to tell Caroline about her father's assassination. That evening, Caroline and John, Jr. were brought back to the White House, and with Caroline in bed, Shaw broke the news to her. However, the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, had already written letters to Caroline and John, Jr., telling them about the assassination and that they could "always be proud" of their father.^[11] Shaw subsequently found out that their mother had wanted to be the one to tell the children, which caused a rift between the nanny and Mrs. Kennedy.^[12] In December 1963, Jackie, Caroline, and John, Jr. moved from the White House back to Georgetown. Their home soon became a popular tourist attraction in Washington and they moved to a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in mid-1964. In May 1967, Kennedy christened the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy in a widely publicized ceremony in Newport News, Virginia.^[13] In 1975, she was visiting London to complete a nine-month art course at the Sotheby's auction house. On October 23, a car bomb, placed by the IRA under the car of her host, Conservative MP Hugh Fraser, exploded shortly before Kennedy and Fraser were due to leave for their daily drive to Sotheby's. Caroline was running late and had not yet left the house, but a passerby, oncologist Gordon Hamilton-Fairley, was killed.^[14]

Education and personal life[link]

Kennedy attended The Brearley School and Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City and, in 1975, graduated from Concord Academy in Massachusetts.^[15] In 1979, she received her Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College^[16] at Harvard University. In 1988, she received a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, graduating in the top ten percent of her class.^[17] During college, Kennedy "considered becoming a photojournalist, but soon realized she could never make her living observing other people because they were too busy watching her."^[18] At the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, she was a Photographer's Assistant.^[18] In 1977, she became a summer intern at the New York Daily News, earning $156 a week, "fetching coffee for harried editors and reporters, changing typewriter ribbons and delivering messages."^[19] Kennedy reportedly "sat on a bench alone for two hours the first day before other employees even said hello to her"; and, according to Richard Licata, a former News reporter, "Everyone was too scared."^[18]

In addition, Kennedy wrote for Rolling Stone about visiting Graceland shortly after Elvis's death.^[18] In 1980, after graduating from college, she was hired as a Research Assistant in the Film and Television Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She later became a "liaison officer between the museum staff and outside producers and directors shooting footage at the museum", helping coordinate the Sesame Street special Don't Eat the Pictures.^[20] While at her museum job, Kennedy met her future husband, exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg.^[16] Kennedy and Schlossberg were married on July 19, 1986,^[4] at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Massachusetts. Kennedy's matron of honor was her cousin, Maria Shriver; her uncle, U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), walked her down the aisle. Although she is often incorrectly referred to as "Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg", she did not change her name when she married.^[2][3] Kennedy and Schlossberg have three children: Rose, Tatiana, and John; and they live in New York City.

Kennedy owns her mother's 375-acre (1.52 km²) estate known as Red Gate Farm in Aquinnah (formerly Gay Head) on the island of Martha's Vineyard. The New York Daily News estimated Kennedy's net worth in 2008 at over $100 million.^[21] Living in New York and somewhat apart from their Hyannisport cousins,^[22] Caroline and John, Jr. were very close, especially after their mother's death on May 19, 1994.^[23] John, Jr. died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999, leaving Caroline the sole survivor of the President's immediate family.

Public career[link]

Kennedy officiating over the first annual Pen Awards for songwriting excellence-at the JFK Presidential Library, Boston, Mass. on Feb. 26, 2012. The honorees were Leonard Cohen and Chuck Berry.

Kennedy is an attorney, writer, and editor and serves on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations. From 2002 through 2004, she worked as director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships for the New York City Department of Education. The three-day-a-week job paid her a salary of $1 and had the goal of raising private money for the New York City public schools.^[24] In that capacity, she helped raise more than $65 million for the city’s public schools.^[4][25] She currently serves as one of two vice chairs of the board of directors of The Fund for Public Schools, a public-private partnership founded in 2002 to attract private funding for public schools in New York City.^[26] She has also served on the board of trustees of Concord Academy, which she attended as a child.^[27]

Kennedy and other members of her family created the Profile in Courage Award in 1989. The award is given to a public official or officials whose actions demonstrate politically courageous leadership in the spirit of John F. Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage.^[28] She is also president of the Kennedy Library Foundation^[4] and an adviser to the Harvard Institute of Politics, a living memorial to her father. Kennedy is a member of the New York and Washington, D.C. bar associations. She is also a member of the boards of directors of the Commission on Presidential Debates and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and is an honorary chair of the American Ballet Theatre.^[28] Kennedy has represented her family at the funeral services of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford and former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. She also represented her family at the dedication of the Bill Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas in November 2004.

2008 presidential election[link]

2008 United States presidential election

Kennedy on the presidential campaign trail.

Kennedy spoke during the first night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, on August 25, 2008, introducing her uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy.

On Sunday, January 27, 2008, Kennedy announced in a New York Times op-ed piece entitled, "A President Like My Father," that she would endorse Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.^[29] Her concluding lines were: "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." This was the first time she had endorsed a presidential candidate other than when she endorsed her uncle, Ted Kennedy, in 1980.^[30][31]

Federal Election Commission records show that Kennedy contributed $2,300 to the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign committee on June 29, 2007. She previously contributed a total of $5,000 to Clinton's 2006 senatorial campaign. On September 18, 2007, she contributed $2,300 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign committee.^[32]

On June 4, 2008, Obama named Caroline Kennedy, along with Jim Johnson and Eric Holder, to co-chair his Vice Presidential Search Committee.^[33] (Johnson withdrew one week later.) Filmmaker Michael Moore called on Kennedy to "Pull a Cheney",^[34] and name herself as Obama's vice presidential running mate (Dick Cheney headed George W. Bush's vice presidential vetting committee in 2000—Cheney himself was chosen for the job ^[35]). On August 23, Obama announced that Senator Joe Biden of Delaware would be his running mate. Kennedy addressed the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, introducing a tribute film about her uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy.^[36]

U.S. Senate seat[link]

In December 2008, Kennedy announced her interest in the United States Senate seat occupied by Hillary Clinton, who had been selected to become Secretary of State. This seat was to be filled through 2010 by appointment of New York Governor David Paterson.^[37] This same seat was held by Kennedy's uncle Robert F. Kennedy from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968, when he was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.^[38] Kennedy's appointment was supported by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter,^[39] State Assemblyman Vito Lopez,^[40] New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg,^[41] former New York City Mayor Ed Koch,^[42] and the New York Post editorial page.^[43]

She received criticism for not voting in a number of Democratic primaries and general elections since registering in 1988 in New York City^[40] and for not providing details about her political views.^[42] Kennedy declined to make disclosures of her financial dealings or other personal matters to the press, stating that she would not release the information publicly unless she is selected by Governor Paterson.^[44] She did complete a confidential 28-page disclosure questionnaire required of hopefuls, reported to include extensive financial information.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Kennedy acknowledged that she would need to prove herself. "Going into politics is something people have asked me about forever", Kennedy said. "When this opportunity came along, which was sort of unexpected, I thought, 'Well, maybe now. How about now?' " "[I'll have to] work twice as hard as anybody else...I am an unconventional choice...We're starting to see there are many ways into public life and public service."^[45] In late December 2008, Kennedy drew criticism from several media outlets for lacking clarity in interviews, and for using the phrase "you know" 168 times during a 30 minute interview with NY1.^[46]