Caroline Kennedy to run for Senate

Caroline Kennedy (pictured), the daughter of President John F Kennedy, has ended speculation about her political ambitions and will seek the Democratic nomination to run for the Senate seat for New York, which becomes vacant in January when Hillary Clinton becomes Secretary of State in President-elect Barack Obama's new White House administration.

Although she has made no official announcement, the New York Times reports that Kennedy, 51, an attorney and author, with a home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, will relay her decision this week to the state governor of New York, David Patterson, who is responsible for selecting a successor to Clinton.

If she manages to be selected and win the seat – and there are a number of other stronger contenders, among them the city's current state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, son of the former New York governor Mario Cuomo - she will be the second Kennedy in the Senate. Despite having suffered a brain tumour, her uncle, Ted Kennedy, is still the Senator for Massachusetts, a position he had held since 1962.

Many of Kennedy's friends are said to be taken aback by her decision. For most of her adult life, she has eschewed politics, preferring to occupy herself with raising her own family and running various philanthropic causes and institutions, including the John F Kennedy Library in Boston.

However, that seems to have changed ever since her endorsement of Obama in January this year. She wrote in the New York Times: “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.”

Later in his election campaign Obama enlisted her to the panel vetting possible candidates for running-mate and the pair are said to get on famously, which will not damage her chances. It also raises the tantalising prospect - a long-held dream of many Democrats - of another Kennedy one day occupying the White House.