If Caroline Kennedy gets appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, she would go into a 2010 election against Long Island Republican Rep. Peter King with the upper hand, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted January 6. The survey has Kennedy leading 51 percent to 33 percent among New York voters with 9 percent favoring some other candidate and 7 percent undecided.

Unsurprisingly, King suffers from not having the widespread name recognition of Kennedy with 23 percent not knowing enough about him to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion. His favorable to unfavorable ratio is 39 percent to 37 percent while Kennedy's is 63 percent to 31 percent despite the hammering she has been taking lately in the press and from critics.