Why a Kennedy may be just what Syracuse needs

For the umpteenth time in the past few weeks, I saw my mayor on the NBC (Not Bad, Considering....) nightly news. In case you missed him, he's the guy on Caroline Kennedy's right in that shot of her walking into an undisclosed location after leaving her SUV. The undisclosed location is Syracuse's City Hall, something they don't typically mention on the news.

It's kind of cool to see the mayor on TV -- it'll help us recognize him if we happen to run into him at the grocery store, or at a chain restaurant outside the confines of Syracuse proper, as MSB and I did last summer. It's also kind of cool to see him with someone famous who might actually be able to do us some good. And that person may just be Caroline Kennedy.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not generally a fan of political dynasties -- and I'm not one who will chase a celebrity around looking for a chance to rub elbows, get an autograph or snap a picture. As I said, MSB and I saw the mayor and his family eating good in the neighborhood, and we just left them alone.

But. Here we have a Kennedy, who's never run for public office, trying to convince an unelected governor that she's the right person to replace a woman from Illinois (by way of Arkansas and the White House), who had never run for political office, but became our Senator after traversing the state listening to people talk about their issues -- and right next to her is our mayor!

So how can this help us? I'm thinking that, if the job of a new senator is to not aggravate anyone really important, and keep their name and face in the news all the time, we could be a whole lot worse off than Caroline Kennedy. She's already got the face in the news part nailed. And c'mon, if she does get selected, there's a point at which someone's going to have to ask "just who is that guy to Caroline's right in that shot?" Some producer will figure out that it's the mayor of Syracuse, and then they'll want to come here, learn about him, and the city, and us.... and then maybe some good will happen.

The alternative? Some guy named Cuomo, who's the son of some guy named Cuomo, who once was a famous Democrat from New York. The problem is, I haven't seen a Cuomo on TV umpteen times in the past few weeks. And I'm not sure he'd recognize our mayor if he saw him eating good in the neighborhood.