It was, at the same time, surprising and not so.

Her bid for a soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat in disarray, Caroline Kennedy has pulled the plug. In a one-sentence statement released to the press, she said, "I informed Gov. Paterson today that for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate."

Kennedy's brief emergence from a near lifetime of guarded privacy started off with excitement but ended disastrously. When she endorsed Barack Obama for president, about a year ago, she sent a signal that she might be entertaining thoughts of a public life. The endorsement was followed by her role in the Obama VP vetting process and a major speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Then, in mid-December, she signaled her interest in the seat that Hillary Clinton would vacate to become secretary of state. Many high-profile New York pols immediately indicated they would join her cause; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was thought to be one of them.

Then it started to go sour. Her upstate "listening tour" — modeled after Hillary Clinton's in 1999 — was a disaster. She was shielded from the press, gave inarticulate responses to questions when the media had access, admitted she had a spotty voting record, and refused questions about her personal finances. Wherever she went, she was hounded with questions about "entitlement" — as in, should she be given the seat simply because she's a Kennedy?

That last charge was completely unfair. She has a long, if not public, record of philanthropy, and everyone who has worked with her says she is smart, forceful and on target. But that's not what the public saw, and polls were showing that state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, another Senate hopeful, was surpassing her among Empire State voters.

It is being reported that Caroline pulled out because of concern about the health of her uncle, Ted Kennedy. The Massachusetts senator has been battling brain cancer for nearly a year, and shortly after Obama's inauguration on Tuesday, he suffered a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. (He has since been released; the seizure was linked to fatigue.)

But that rings hollow to me. Ted has been pushing Caroline for the seat from the beginning, as if he were intending to extend the Kennedy legacy — there has been a Kennedy in the Senate ever since Jack was elected in 1952 (with a two-year hiatus in 1961-62). But Ted's health has been poor from the outset, so for Caroline to suggest that is the reason doesn't make sense.

I suspect that either she felt she was being humiliated by negative media coverage or, more likely, Paterson signaled he was looking elsewhere.

But where?

I don't think it's Cuomo either. The attorney general has been rumored to be pondering a challenge to Paterson in the 2010 primary, and the thought of Paterson picking him to avoid such a challenge is silly. Remember when people were speculating that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich would name rival Lisa Madigan, the state attorney general, to the Obama Senate seat to take her out of the '10 gov race? Ridiculous.

Besides, Paterson has said he would like to appoint a woman to succeed Hillary Clinton. And he doesn't like the idea of having an all-NYC ticket next year, when he (Manhattan), Cuomo (Queens) and Sen. Charles Schumer (Brooklyn) will all be running.

That leaves me with Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, the second-term House member from the Hudson Valley area upstate. She is photogenic, a good campaigner, and has tons of money. She's been my guess from the beginning, I've said it consistently in our podcast, and I'm sticking with it. (Oh, and when I wrote in 1999 that I was convinced the Democratic successor to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan would definitely be Rep. Nita Lowey and not Hillary Clinton? Ignore that.)

Other names still apparently on Paterson's list include Rep. Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan, Rep. Steve Israel of Long Island, Rep. Brian Higgins of Buffalo, and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. It's going to be Gillibrand.

Still, what comes out of all this is Paterson's decision to delay the process. Whatever you think of Michael Bennet, the relatively unknown choice of Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) to fill the Senate seat of new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, at least the governor made a decision.

We're expecting an announcement by Friday.

Tags: Washington Senators