Robert Kennedy Won't Run for State Attorney General

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer and the son of the onetime senator from New York, said on Monday that he had decided not to run for state attorney general after having considered a bid for several months.

Mr. Kennedy said he had concluded that a successful campaign would have left him too little time with his wife and six children and he was unwilling to make that sacrifice. He said he had spent the last few weeks conducting meetings with politicians throughout the state and other members of the Kennedy family before making his decision.


In a two-hour interview at Mr. Kennedy's sprawling home here, he insisted that his decision had nothing to do with the prospect of his running against his brother-in-law Andrew M. Cuomo, who is getting a divorce from Mr. Kennedy's sister Kerry. "I talked about it a lot with my wife, with my kids, my uncle and my brothers and sisters," said Mr. Kennedy, whose older brother, Joseph, was once a congressman from Massachusetts and whose sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, served as lieutenant governor of Maryland.

"It's funny," he continued. "All the family members who had not been in political office urged me to run and the ones who had served in office urged me not to." Mr. Kennedy, who is the chief lawyer for Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy group, caused a stir in the state's political world within the last week when it became widely known that he was considering running for attorney general. Mr. Kennedy said that in the last week, he had received hundreds of calls and e-mail messages from politicians and ordinary New Yorkers urging him to run.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/nyregion/25kennedy.html