JFK's Daughter Boldly Steps Into the Political Spotlight By Kathy Kiely,USA Today Chip Somodevilla, Getti Images... Source:

WASHINGTON - (June 26) - With Barack Obama's bid for the White House, the torch has been passed to a new generation in more ways than one: For the first time, the best-known Kennedy on the presidential campaign trail is named Caroline.

As Sen. Edward Kennedy, the patriarch of the nation's most famous Democratic family, battles brain cancer out of the public eye, his niece is emerging as a political player in her own right.

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With a role in Barack Obama's campaign, Caroline Kennedy is making an unprecedented foray into the political arena that's remarkable even to friends and colleagues. "It's a different frontier that she's crossed," said one. "I've never seen her so interested and excited," said another.

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Kennedy endorsed Obama in January, comparing him to her iconic father, President John F. Kennedy. "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them," she wrote in an editorial for The New York Times. "But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president." She has campaigned for the candidate and earlier this month became an adviser in choosing Obama's running mate.

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Caroline and her brother, John Jr., play in the Oval Office with their father in October 1962. Some say the former first daughter's avoidance of the spotlight during her life could be helpful to her newfound political work. "She has credibility because she hasn't been out there," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, a family friend. Others say it's kept her accomplishments from the public eye, leading critics to question her credentials.

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Kennedy, who graduated from Harvard University and has a law degree from Columbia University, has been married to artist and designer Edwin Schlossberg since 1986. The two have three children: Rose, 20; Tatiana, 18; and Jack, 15.

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She became the sole living legacy of the Camelot White House when John F. Kennedy Jr., right, died in a plane crash in 1999. Their mother, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had succumbed to cancer five years earlier.

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Kennedy has spent recent years working on civic enterprises in New York City, including raising money for schools. She is also president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, hosts the annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington and is the is the honorary chairwoman of the American Ballet Theatre. Here, she poses with Tipper Gore, center, and Blaine Trump at the theater's opening night gala in 1999 in New York.

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Kennedy has emerged more in the public eye just as her "Uncle Teddy," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., left, has retreated from it to battle brain cancer. At least two of Caroline Kennedy's friends disagree on whether her recent activities signal a possible future run for office. "I don't think she'd go that far," said one. Said another, "I could see it."    Source: USA Today