Caroline Kennedy is, rather obvious, a Kennedy. She is the daughter of the most famous Kennedy of all: John F., the former president.

Caroline is a constitutional scholar with no political experience as such. Her greatest accomplishments in politics are: endorsing then Senator now President-Elect Barack Obama for the nomination of the Democratic Party and the presidency, campaigning for him and, lastly, selecting his vice president, Joe Biden (not an uncontroversial selection, to say the least).

Nevertheless, Kennedy wants to take over Hillary Clinton’s seat in the U.S. Senate, representing New York. Clinton will, of course, move on to become Obama’s secretary of state, so someone else needs to do the work she did in the senate.

Although Kennedy does not have tremendous political experience at this moment, one could argue that Clinton did not have much experience either when she first became Senator for New York. She had more experience than Kennedy in so far that Clinton was actively involved in the decision making process of her husband, when he was governor of Arkansas and as president, but she too had never run for elected office until 2000.

Despite her lack of experience in elected office, Clinton quickly became one of the most dominant members in the Senate. She was eager to learn, worked hard, and represented her state quite well. New York played a major role in the national political debate due to Clinton’s hard work and influence.

Kennedy resembles Clinton in many ways: no experience in elected office yet, but she too knows politics for she grew up wth it, and she knows all the major players in the Democratic Party. If she would take over Clinton’s seat, New York would continue to get a lot of attention and to be an influential voice in the Senate: if because of nothing else than because all Democrats want to be perceived as ‘getting along’ with the Kennedy-clan. John F. Kennedy continues to be the most famous and liked Democratic president in history.

If Kennedy does not represent New York well and if she proves to be far less capable and talented than her predecessor, she will simply lose the election for the seat in 2010. In short: giving her the benefit of the doubt makes sense.

Despite the above, angry voices rose up in condemnation shortly after Kennedy announced she would like to take over Clinton’s seat. Clinton supporters said Kennedy was too inexperienced – which can be seen as hypocritical – and many others say Kennedy behaves like a “princess” who thinks she “owns” the seat simply because her father was president. Princesses do not have to work had to become powerful, they simply get what they ‘deserve’ due to their bloodband with the king. This is, these opponents say, exactly how Kennedy thinks.

One can explain this reaction as follows: Americans’ dislike for ‘dynasties.’ Sometimes the dislike is reasonable, at other times it’s overly emotional, even paranoid. Dynasties can be dangerous, but one should not exaggerate the danger either. What’s more, American ‘dynasties’ too have to win elections. Real dynasties do not have to win any elections: pretending that Kennedy behaves like a princess implies that she thinks that she will not have to win elections to hold on to the seat. But she knows she has to, and she is willing, or so she says, to campaign for it, to work hard and to raise money. She may get the seat temporarily, but this will happen to anyone, no matter who takes it over. No matter who succeeds Clinton, he or she will not have to win an election to take the seat.

Holding on to it, however, is an entirely different story.

So, perhaps it is time for opponents of the Kennedy-clan and paranoid anti-dynasty commentators to get over themselves and over their fear for yet another Kennedy in an influential position: if she isn’t competent for the job, she’ll lose the back-to-back elections for it.