The widow of the former US Senator Ted Kennedy, Victoria Kennedy, is to become the new American ambassador in Vienna. US President Joe Biden proposed Kennedy as the US head of mission in Austria, US media reported on Wednesday, citing the White House. The nomination had been expected since the previous week after the presidential chancellery in Vienna announced that Austria had given it official approval.
Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) described the emerging nomination as an “award” and “honor” for Austria. The White House proposal has yet to be confirmed by the US Senate. Because Biden’s Democrats have a majority there, this is only a matter of form. However, the procedure, in which Kennedy also has to face a hearing, could drag on into the fall. The US portal Axios had already reported at the end of May that “Vicki” Kennedy was earmarked for an ambassadorial post “in a Western European country”. The daughter of the former US President John F. Kennedy, Caroline, will become an ambassador to Australia.
The 67-year-old Victoria Kennedy comes from the southern state of Louisiana. Her father Edmund Reggie was a judge and banker who supported John F. Kennedy in his unsuccessful 1956 presidential campaign. Her mother Doris Ann Boustany was also active in the Democratic Party. Victoria Kennedy has Maronite ancestors from Lebanon who immigrated to Louisiana.
Unm campaigned Catholic supporters for Obama
Ted and Victoria Kennedy married in 1992. His second wife helped the presidential brother get away from the drunkard and philanderer image. The New York Times reported that she was instrumental in enabling Kennedy to keep Republican challenger Mitt Romney at bay in the 1994 Senate election. Three years later, Vicki Kennedy gave up her legal profession and began to be more involved in politics. For example, she tried to organize Catholic supporters for Democratic President Barack Obama.
After the death of her husband in 2009, she was also under discussion as a possible successor. But she refused to take her husband’s seat until the new Senate election. Republican Scott Brown won the early election race in 2010. When a regular Senate election took place in 2012, Kennedy again refused to throw her hat in the ring. Brown’s challenger was Elizabeth Warren, who became an icon of the left wing after her election victory in the Senate and whose presidential candidacy in 2020 was accompanied by great euphoria.
Kennedy, who also made a name for herself as an activist for stricter gun laws, was earmarked for a government post under Obama. The then President nominated her for the post of Governor of the US Post Office (USPS) in February 2014. However, the nomination did not go through in the highly polarized US Senate.