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Caroline Kennedy For U.S. Ambassador To Canada? Let The Rumours Begin

JFK's Daughter Next Ambassador To Canada?
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Rumours are flying that Caroline Kennedy may become the next U.S. ambassador to Canada.

U.S. President Barack Obama is set to replace current envoy David Jacobson soon, and former president John F. Kennedy's daughter may be on the short list, a possibility highlighted by the National Post.

Kennedy has been a prominent supporter of Obama and an important fundraiser for the president.

In late 2008 and 2009, Kennedy made a bid for appointment to Hillary Clinton's vacated New York Senate seat. That attempt to enter politics didn't turn out, with tax issues a possible culprit. Kennedy is worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of $100 million, according to the New York Daily News.

Despite the failure, the party gave Kennedy a chance to speak at the 2012 Democratic Convention, an opportunity which she used to defend Obama's policies on women's rights and contraception.

While Kennedy's desire to get more actively involved in politics is well-known, there are plenty of other names being bandied about for the ambassadorship.

Among those with the most buzz are Christine Gregoire, the former governor of Washington state who's played a key role in the Beyond the Border agreement between the U.S. and Canada; Jennifer Granholm, the Canadian-born former governor of Michigan; and Olympia Snowe, the long-serving Republican senator from Maine who opted against running for office in November, fed up with partisan gridlock.

The Post has also suggested that former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, a vocal supporter of the Keystone pipeline, and Detroit Mayor David Bing, a supporter of a new bridge to Canada, may also be in the running.

Chris Sands, a Canada-U.S. relations expert at the Hudson Institute in Washington, who may very well have got the Kennedy rumour started in the first place, has also suggested that Susan Rice, who recently withdrew herself from consideration as Obama's choice for secretary of state, could be on the list as well.

Sands has argued that John Kerry's appointment to the position Rice failed to win may give Kennedy an edge.

Kerry is close to the Kennedy family and famously shares the initials JFK with the former president.

That's the message in a column from The Globe And Mail's John Ibbitson published on Wednesday. Ibbitson suggests that while high-profile appointees such as Kennedy and Rice flatter Canadians' egos, the position is more likely to go to a low-profile fundraiser in the mould of current ambassador Jacobson.

We'll just have to wait to find out.

With files from The Canadian Press

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