WASHINGTON, 28 January 2008 — Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential bid, calling him the presidential candidate most capable of carrying on the legacy of her late father.

Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement is a key one for Obama, whose campaign staff have sought to portray him as a worthy heir to the former president’s “Camelot” image.

Obama, who clinched a blockbuster victory in the South Carolina’s primary Saturday against rival Senator Hillary Clinton, issued a statement calling it “a special privilege to have (Kennedy’s) endorsement because I’ve always believed that Caroline’s father was one of our greatest presidents.”

It remains to be seen whether Kennedy’s uncle and Democratic party heavyweight Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) will also come out in favor of Obama ahead of the Feb. 5 primaries.

In a column Saturday in the New York Times, titled “A President Like My Father,” Caroline Kennedy said she is backing Obama because he offers the same uplifting message of hope and change that her father did when he ran for president in 1960.

“I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans,” Kennedy wrote in the editorial.

Kennedy, who was four days shy of her 6th birthday when her father was assassinated, wrote that Obama “has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things.”

She appealed to other parents to pick a candidate who she said could invigorate a younger generation that is too often “hopeless, defeated and disengaged.”

Kennedy wrote that she wants a president “who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.”

Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of former US president John F. Kennedy, also credited Obama for making the right call on ‘the most important issue of our time’ by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.

Political pundits consider the endorsement by Caroline Kennedy, who has kept a low profile through many family tragedies since her father’s assassination in 1963, a huge boost to Obama’s presidential campaign.