Caroline Kennedy portrayed President Obama as the heir of her father, President Jack Kennedy, during a plea for youth voters to display their former enthusiasm for his candidacy.

“My father couldn’t run for a second term,” Kennedy said, according to a rushed transcription of her speech before the Democratic National Convention. “Now it’s up to a new generation . . . Young people have always led America toward a brighter future. It happened in 1960, it happened in 2008, and if you show the same spirit in this election that you showed in the past, I know that it’ll happen again.”

The youth unemployment rate is 17.1 percent, the Labor Department announced last month.