When Professor David Townsend and his former student Kathleen Kennedy were married, their friends gave them a potter's wheel. It seemed like a good idea at the time. "Kathleen has all the attributes [for it]: focus, persistence, a spiritual side and immense desire to complete the work," says David. She was destined, he thought, to be a wonderful wife, mother--and potter.
The potter's wheel sits still now, covered by cobwebs, in the basement. And Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, 48, the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, has emerged as the most promising of the next wave of political Kennedys. Although she is the only...