Caroline Kennedy’s bid for the Senate has more support nationwide than in New York alone, a new poll suggests.
The CNN/Opinion Research survey, released yesterday, found 52 percent of Americans believe Kennedy is qualified to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as senator, while 42 percent believe she isn’t.
This is in contrast to a Quinnipiac University poll out last week that found only 40 percent of New York state voters view her as qualified, while 41 percent said she was not.
Yesterday’s poll also found a gender gap among Kennedy’s supporters nationwide, with 57 percent of women saying she’s qualified compared to 47 percent among men.
It was released as Gov. Paterson came under intense new pressure to pick someone other than Kennedy, who has been criticized for her halting performance in a series of interviews over the weekend.
“The governor isn’t happy about all this pressure, especially since he has so many other issues to deal with,” said a source close to Paterson.
The criticisms of Kennedy, who granted her first interviews to several newspapers, including The Post, and NY1, came from City Council members, state lawmakers and other prominent Democrats.
“I don’t know that she’s got the temperament, from what I could see in the interviews, for the rough and tough that I love about our city,” said Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan).
“I don’t know if I see her mingling with us, so to speak, the people who have been working at this a long time,” said Brewer, a close ally of Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who has been mentioned as an alternative pick for the Senate seat.
Another council member, who asked to remain anonymous, said Kennedy had “meandered” while answering interviewers’ questions, noting, “She hedged on everything, and it was obvious she was hedging.
“She’s not ready for this.”
Longtime Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf called Kennedy’s “second rollout her second bomb. It’s two rollouts now and two bombs.
“She didn’t answer questions in the interviews.”
Joseph Mercurio, a prominent consultant for Democrats and Republicans, however, said he was impressed by some of Kennedy’s efforts.
“She’s fleshing herself out. People whose strategy was to frame her as a lightweight to get rid of her have found that strategy hasn’t worked. No one else has gained traction,” Mercurio said.
Kennedy said “you know” 235 times in her 41-minute interview with The Post – which works out to saying the phrase once every 10.5 seconds.
Speech expert Dr. Dennis Becker, who has worked with Kennedy’s uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, said it was a “very, very common” verbal tic, called a “vocalized pause,” but a habit that seems to have gotten worse for the JFK progeny in recent years.
He said that the vocalized pause is a “Kennedyism” – and that her uncle is notorious for peppering his speech with “um.”
Additional reporting by Sally Goldenberg and Maggie Haberman