By BRADEN KEIL and GINGER ADAMS OTIS
Last updated: 12:07 pm
July 6, 2008
Posted: 3:44 am
July 6, 2008
It's "her time" to get into the family business.
Caroline Kennedy's high-profile appointment to Barack Obama's vice-presidential search team was orchestrated in a deal brokered by her famous uncle, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, in exchange for his endorsement, The Post has learned.
It was the result of Caroline, a 50-year-old Harvard grad, indicating to her now-ailing uncle that it was "her time" to get into politics, insiders told The Post.
JFK's daughter is looking to get her feet wet in political affairs, sources said, including the possibility she could one day run for office in some capacity or accept a position within an Obama administration.
"Caroline was part of the deal" for Ted's surprise backing of Obama, an immediate family member said.
Ted stunned many long-time Democrats when he threw his support behind Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton in January during a critical moment in the heated primary race.
Caroline had already broken her long-held silence on political issues and penned an elegant, first-person explanation of her endorsement of Obama in which she said he could be "a president like my father."
The former first daughter has famously avoided the political limelight since the days of riding Macaroni, her pet pony, around the White House lawn.
Living quietly in New York for most of the past several decades, she has raised three children (the youngest is 15), edited updated versions of her father's 1950s best-seller "Profiles in Courage" and other books, and worked behind the scenes as a public-school advocate.
Obama's announcement in June that Caroline would be on his three-person vice-presidential search team was unexpected, even though she had campaigned for him in the past.
Once Caroline signaled her intent to learn the ropes of the family business, she had the full support of her uncle, sources said.
Some have speculated that Ted would tap her to succeed him in his Senate seat if he decided to retire in the near future. The 76-year-old senator was briefly hospitalized in May after a round of seizures and has since undergone surgery for a brain tumor.
Asked if Caroline was being discussed as a possible successor to her uncle, a family member responded, "No comment!"
Although she has lived on the Upper East Side most of her adult life, her real-estate holdings include late mom Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' sprawling estate on Martha's Vineyard, and Caroline has enduring family ties in Massachusetts.
gotis@nypost.com
