Caroline Kennedy‘s staff has partially answered questionnaires from The New York Times and Politico as to her political beliefs. What I like: her support for gay marriage and labor protections at charter schools, and her opposition to private school vouchers and parental consent laws for minors seeking abortions. What’s less encouraging: her refusal to lay out detailed plans or beliefs about reforming the financial services industry, a key issue for any New York senator, especially right now.

Andrew Sullivan‘s Kennedy-Palin analogy, which I wrote about last week, is starting to catch on. Kennedy needs to do a detailed televsion interview ASAP to remind the world that she’s smart, articulate, and can think on her feet. She’s only hurting herself by avoiding it.

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.