Kids convinced Kennedy to quit Senate bid

NEW YORK, May 5 (UPI) -- Caroline Kennedy ditched her bid for a U.S. Senate seat in New York because her children were alarmed at the person she had become, a family friend said.

Kennedy's three children "told her that if she was getting this worked up just getting the job, they didn't want to see what she would be like in the trenches of a political campaign or a fight in Washington," the friend said.

"It jerked Caroline back to reality," the friend said.

"She wouldn't have taken the job if (Gov. David) Paterson had come begging on his hands and knees."

Kennedy was a contender for the seat vacated by Hillary Clinton when she became secretary of state.

The inside look at the Kennedy family is revealed in a new book, "Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died" and excerpted in June's Vanity Fair magazine, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

Caroline Kennedy is close to her uncle, the senior Democratic senator from Massachusetts who is fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer.