Rep. Patrick Kennedy's (D-R.I.) retirement may serve as a symbolic end of a political era but for those still captivated by America's version of Camelot, there's hope. The list of prospective Kennedy clan candidates, it seems, runs deep.From Massachusetts to California, and in several states in between, there are at least a half-dozen Kennedy kin whose ambitions to serve in elected office burn with varying degrees of intensity.
A handful have already seriously considered bids during the 2010 election cycle, among them Chris Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, who mulled running for two different statewide offices in Illinois; Anthony Shriver, the son of Sargent and Eunice Shriver, who contemplated a shot at the governorship in Florida; and former Congressman Joseph Kennedy II, nephew of Ted Kennedy, who passed on a bid for his late uncle's U.S. Senate seat in the recent special election.
"You can never write them off given the advantages they bring to the process," said Darrell West, vice president of governance studies at The Brookings Institute, who authored a political biography of Patrick Kennedy.
Patrick Kennedy himself echoed that notion Friday when asked about whether his departure marked the end of the political line for his family.
"I wouldn't count us out for good, you know," he told the Boston Globe.
Still, the political licks the family has taken in recent years suggests their storied name is no longer as potent an advantage for the younger generation.
Most recently, Caroline Kennedy underwent a painful and awkward public vetting process after expressing interest in New York's then-vacant Senate seat before ultimately withdrawing her candidacy for unspecified "personal reasons" -- the culmination of an unpleasant episode that ended in recriminations between Kennedy loyalists and aides to Democratic Gov. David Paterson.
Well before that, after an eight-year run as lieutenant governor in Maryland, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend lost a 2002 gubernatorial bid in a state that had not elected a Republican governor in nearly 40 years. Townsend, the oldest of Robert Kennedy's 11 children, rose higher than any other Kennedy woman. But since her defeat, she's remained on the political sidelines.
That same year, two-term state lawmaker Mark Shriver narrowly lost a Democratic primary to Chris Van Hollen in Maryland's 8th Congressional District. Shriver is now directing a national non-profit aimed at aiding impoverished children in rural areas.
A year earlier, in 2001, Max Kennedy, a son of Robert F. Kennedy, unexpectedly dropped out of a race to replace Rep. Joe Moakley of South Boston, who died of leukemia. Although he was initially considered the favorite in the Boston-based 9th Congressional District, he ultimately told reporters he couldn't make the commitment to be away from his three children. Still, he kept the door open for a future run.
''As my father often quoted from The Song of Solomon, 'To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven,'" he said in a statement.