Caroline’s Cold Start Means She’s Firin’ Sheek

What a satisfying way to end the year:

Caroline Kennedy’s advisers have told Mayor Bloomberg’s political pit bull to tone down his lobbying efforts for her for fear it will kill her chances to be named to the Senate.

“There had been huge missteps in the way [City Hall] constructed this,” said a source involved in the Kennedy effort to muzzle Bloomberg operative Kevin Sheekey.

“It’s just a dialing down of anything that would be harmful to her,” the source said.

“Anything like very public meetings with people in City Hall or inappropriate calls to labor leaders will no longer take place. He’ll still be involved, just not in the same way.”

Another source said Sheekey was being pushed aside so neither Gov. Paterson nor Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver would think Bloomberg was trying to muscle her into the Senate.

“The Bloomberg support has not been helping, clearly, with Shelly or the governor, whose people have talked about him not wanting to feel boxed in,” the source said.

Or is it a case of you-can’t-fire-me-because-I-quit? Though “pulling back” sounds like complete BS:

Mayor Bloomberg’s top political aide is pulling back on his lobbying campaign to propel Caroline Kennedy into the U.S. Senate because “it wasn’t working,” according to sources.

“Everything was backfiring,” said one source of the intense behind-the-scenes effort by Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey.