If you Google "Caroline Kennedy Qualified," you'll come up with hundreds of thousands of websites. Site after site asks, "Is Caroline Kennedy Qualified?" -- to hold Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, that is.
New York Republican congressman Peter King, who wants that seat for himself, says there is "no evidence she's qualified."
New York Democratic congressman Gary Ackerman agrees: "She has name recognition, but so does J.Lo."
Zillions of people may rant that Caroline Kennedy lacks what it takes to be a senator, but I think she's qualified. 
After all, what does a senator do?
In theory senators represent the people of the state that sent them to Washington. It's not at all clear what that means. It has something to do with serving the interests of those people rather than the senator's own interests. But it's long been debated whether a representative should do what constituents want or what the representative thinks they should want. Either way we have a problem. New York has 19 million people. We don't have the same interests, and we rarely want the same things. People are diverse.
What's a representative to do? If some in the state want a subsidy for their businesses or farms, and others object, how can the senator serve both groups? Polling is no help, because the minority would be unrepresented.
The idea of a senator truly representing the interests of 19 million people is ridiculous. (This holds for Wyoming's half-million as well.) We pretend that he or she can do it, but no one really believes it. It's just a game we play. The reality is something else.
Caroline Kennedy may indeed be unqualified to be a U.S. senator if she is judged by the job's theoretical duties. But so is everyone else.
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