A handful have already seriously considered bids during the 2010 election cycle, among them Chris Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, who mulled running for two different statewide offices in Illinois; Anthony Shriver, the son of Sargent and Eunice Shriver, who contemplated a shot at the governorship in Florida and former Congressman Joseph Kennedy II, nephew of Ted Kennedy, who passed on a bid for his late uncle’s U.S. Senate seat in the recent special election.

“You can never write them off given the advantages they bring to the process,” said Darrell West, vice president of governance studies at The Brookings Institute, who authored a political biography of Patrick Kennedy…

“They all talk about it, but when it gets right down to it, they don’t do it. They don’t have the fire in the belly,” said Leamer. “Look at Caroline. She wanted to be anointed. She didn’t want to do the work and answer the questions.”