First, from the San Francisco Chronicle, a little inside view of just how unusual the split within the Kennedy clan is:
…Arnold Schwarzenegger] said that the high profile and competing endorsements the Kennedy family – not including his wife Maria Shriver – in the Democratic presidential contest represents a dramatic departure from past years.
“What’s interesting is that, within the family, for the first time you have different opinions,” he said. “I’ve been in the family 30 years, and I’ve never seen that…that’s really the story – what created that, and how Caroline and Teddy hooked up with the same opinion, and Kathleen ended up going with Hillary.”
“I don’t know the whole scoop, because it just happened, ” he laughed. “But eventually we’ll find out.”
Schwarzenegger was referring to the news that Shriver’s cousins, Caroline Kennedy and Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, and her uncle, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama Monday in a dramatic event at American University. But other family members, including former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and said her brother Bobby and sister Kerry do as well.
As for the leanings of Governor Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver:
Schwarzenegger declined to address a possible endorsement by his wife, saying “you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
But sources in the office of the California First Lady, who is the daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver – and the niece to Ted Kennedy, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the late president John F. Kennedy – said today that Shriver currently has no plans to endorse in the 2008 presidential race.
Shriver political sympathies could be valuable to both Clinton and Obama in the race: she is an active First Lady who has been a leading advocate of women’s issues – and she is also a good friend to talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who has endorsed Obama.
I do like that he told the press to ask her and not him about her endorsement sentiments.
Any betting types out there who want to bet on this one?