Caroline Kennedy Endorses Barack Obama
As a child, my mother would make a point of using Caroline Kennedy as a role model. I was a somewhat raucous, talkative, rambunctious child, and so I would hear the stories of how Caroline Kennedy curtsied to the Queen so nicely, or how at-home she looked in the White House, or how lucky I was to have a life that didn’t include a camera hiding behind every tree recording how naughty I was.
Over time, my mother’s admiration of Caroline stuck, and my admiration for her is as deep as my mother’s. As I was celebrating the election returns from South Carolina, the news came in that she had written an Op-Ed for the New York Times endorsing Barack Obama’s candidacy. And with characteristic class and poise, she articulated what I have been trying to say as well.
I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.
I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.
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.
Thank you, Caroline.
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