KEY POINTS:
The nearly royal aura that has clung to Caroline Kennedy from birth has dimmed abruptly as she seeks to navigate her way into the Senate seat that will be vacated by Hillary Clinton if and when she becomes United States Secretary of State.
It still seems probable that Kennedy, 51, rather than any other hopeful from New York State, will be the one packing her trunks and repairing to Washington a few weeks from now. Yet new polling data suggests that her efforts to win public support for her quest have backfired badly.
Most discouraging for her is a survey released by Public Policy Polling which indicates that voters in New York are falling away from Kennedy faster than needles from a dead Christmas tree. Worse, they overwhelmingly favour another to take the seat, a certain Andrew Cuomo.
Kennedy and her rivals are not engaged in a campaign where the voters will decide their fate. Who ends up becoming the Empire State's junior senator will be determined solely by its Governor, David Paterson. Nonetheless, anyone hoping to influence him, Kennedy included, found it necessary to tour the state a little, talk to voters and also reporters.
She has done none of this with much in the way of visible skill, however. So bumbling were some of the interviews over the holiday period that some wags dared to call her the Sarah Palin of the Democratic Party.
Kennedy has managed variously to seem utterly opaque while lacking in the basic skills of plain speaking. There has been not a little mockery of her dependence in conversation on the verbal filler, "you know". She was heard to utter it 138 times in a conversation with reporters from the New York Times. In a single TV interview she reportedly galloped past the 200 mark. That's a lot of you knows.
And while a certain rough-around-the-edges quality does not necessarily harm political newcomers if they have some kind of populist pitch - think Palin - it hardly fits with the likes of Kennedy, whose pedigree is not quite of the hockey rink variety.
All of which may explain the dismal numbers in the new poll published in Newsday and elsewhere.
Some 44 per cent of New Yorkers say they have a lesser opinion of Kennedy since she declared her interest in the seat. They favoured Cuomo, the son of the former Governor Mario Cuomo and now the Attorney General in the state, by 58 to 27 per cent.
Aside from Cuomo, other possible rivals for Paterson's attention include a popular New York congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney.
"If this is a celebrity beauty contest, I am not going to win," Maloney said. "But if people want to look at someone's record and their service and their work to help people, I think I have a chance."
Paterson has said he will make no decision before the confirmation of Clinton as Secretary of State, which is probably several weeks away. Many pundits believe he will find it hard to resist the pull of Kennedy, not least because of her money-raising abilities and her close relationship with President-elect Barack Obama.
If she takes the seat she will have two years to polish her game before being obliged to run in an election to hold on to it.
Caroline Kennedy has to convince one person in her bid to replace Hillary Clinton in the US Senate - New York Governor David Paterson.
Paterson has said he will listen to his closest advisers in and outside government, including other elected and party officials. He has also said that the decision is his alone, and that he will choose a senator who meets his requirements, including the ability to bring federal aid back to New York.
In her favour:
* Star power
* Fundraising ability
* Her appeal to voters who have fond memories of Camelot
* Potential influence in the Obama Administration. Obama got a boost from Kennedy's early endorsement.
- INDEPENDENT
