Rudy Giuliani is racking up the endorsement of Jeb Bush, Jr. whose relevance to political office, as best I can tell, is that he's Jeb Bush's son, George W. Bush's nephew, and George H.W. Bush's grandson. This has been commented on previously in light of the staggering fact that we're apparently going to go Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton in terms of the White House, but there's really something astounding about the dynastification of American politics.
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Family Ties
18 Oct 2007 11:02 am
Comments (37)
The Bush name is tainted forever. There is absolutely no way a Bush will return to the White House.
Why is it so weird that we'd have 20 years of Bush or Clinton, when we've had 80 years of Republican or Democrat? Not all of the Democratic candidates are the same, of course, but they all have much more in common with one another than they do with the Republican candidates.
I worry that if it's Clinton in the general election, people will think that voting for Republican hegemony is the way to reject dynastification.
And by 80 years I mean 150 years.
Vote Northern Whig.
How will the Bush endorsement affect Giuliani's ability to win FL? ... which is a key advantage Giuliani has (even if he might turn off fundies up here in North FL, Giuliani will certainly capture the normally Democratic alterkocker vote).
Bush was fairly popular in FL, AFAIK, though I moved here at the tail end of his governorship ... plus I live in Tally which is a vaguely Democratic (not JEB friendly) town.
*
BTW -- isn't JEB Bush redundant? JEB is JEB for the same reason I'm DAS ... those are his initials: John Ellis Bush, eh?
The Clintons were nobodies in national politics before Bill ran for President and there's no indication their "dynasty" will continue after Hillary. If not for the Supreme Court, it might have been Bush-Clinton-Gore and we might never have had a 2nd President Bush or possible 2nd President Clinton anyway.
Ron, your point, about historical contingency and avoiding teleology, I guess, is right but misses a larger issue: the second Bush was the nominee, which allowed the Supreme Court to choose him. And HRC, if she's the nominee, will be because (debatable, I know) of her husband. So, these things are contingent, of course. And its always best not to read the past backward. But this does seem to be a moment of dynastic politics.
The question for me is: why? It made more sense in the Early Republic, with the Adams presidencies. People were used to kings, after all, even if they didn't particularly like them. But why now?
Yes, SomeCallMeTim.
I believe he is, as his grandfather George HW Bush so eloquently said "the brown one".
Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton: Big Freakin' Deal. The pattern will almost certainly stop there. Who'd succeed Hillary -- Jenna? Jeb? Then Chelsea? It's ridiculously improbable. Fifty years from now it will look like nothing but a brief, weird glitch in the roll call of Presidents, like those non-consecutive terms for Grover Cleveland.
This 'last names' obsession people have is a way of focusing on the trivial aspect of the problem. Winning presidential nominations has long been an insider's game and family ties have only been a very small part of it. By my count only once (Dan Quayle) since WWII has a current or former VP NOT received his party's presidential nomination if he sought it. Meanwhile, half the current administration served with Nixon and/or Ford. It's aristocracy, not dynasticism, that's the problem afflicting the top tiers of our political system. (And yes, as Neil notes, the two-party dominance is undoubtedly the biggest symptom of this.)
But of course complaints about dynasties are convenient for opponents of Hillary Clinton. I wish I had a nickel for every wishy-washy Democrat I've met for whom that's the only objection to her they can articulate. (I say this as someone who doesn't favor her for the nomination.)
The Bush name is tainted forever. There is absolutely no way a Bush will return to the White House.
Famous last words.
If you're under 40, you've never voted in a Presidential election that didn't have a Bush or a Clinton running. Heck, you include VP tickets, and nobody under 48 has voted in a Presidential without having a Bush or Clinton running.
Let me put it another way--since 1959, not a single person has been born who didn't walk into a voting booth and see, in EVERY SINGLE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF THEIR ENTIRE LIFE, a Bush or a Clinton.
That's really crazy in a so-called Democracy.
Ugh. I'm so tired of these family members getting involved in politics. Let's get some fresh blood in there and elect someone who hasn't gotten there on their name only - someone like Mitt Romney or Chris Dodd.
Ryan, why so angry? Although your point may end up being right -- history will judge -- the people highlighting the issue of dynastic politics, including Josh Marshall, Matt Y, and Andrew Sullivan, don't really seem to focus only, or even largely, on the trivial dimensions of political questions.
That said, I'd agree that politics is an insiders' game. Which, given the current issues landscape, is why I'm hoping a candidate somewhat at odds with the establishment will be nominated. So if you're concerned about the closed nature of the system, I'd ask why you're dismissing people who are as well.
Things like this are under MattY's rader, but there's a good chance the "P." will run for prez in a decade or two, and he might even do so as a Dem. MattY can now return to his bubble.
It seems "Jebby"'s only claim to fame is having been caught in 2000 having sex with a 17 year old girl in a mall parking lot (he was 16) & 5 years later getting caught being publicly intoxicated & then resisting arrest.
Why would his endorsement matter to anyone, regardless of his family ties?
>.apparently going to go Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton in terms of the White House
I love how you say that as if you aren't contributing to that outcome by saying that.
Not a true biological dynasty. Hillary Rodham is, in no genetic sense, related to either Clinton or Bush.
It seems "Jebby"'s only claim to fame is having been caught in 2000 having sex with a 17 year old girl in a mall parking lot (he was 16) & 5 years later getting caught being publicly intoxicated & then resisting arrest.
Why would his endorsement matter to anyone, regardless of his family ties?
Well, if his career follows his uncle's path-- and it looks like it might-- he'll be President someday...
if you think there's no chance jeb ever runs and wins, you don't have an even cursory understanding of american politics. wasn't nixon absolutely done at various points? wasn't the name clinton seen at one point as an insurmountable hurdle to being elected in president (in light of whitewater, hillarycare, whatever). didn't bush seem like a joke candidate at one point (you may still think he's a joke, but he got the nomination, the nod from the court, and another win in 04)? things change, lots and quickly.
as for the name game, it's disturbing, but also obviously one of hillary's greatest strengths. just makes clear how much the name and connections matter when running for presdient. i can understand it for lesser office, where the stakes are lower and the potential candidates limited. you would hope we'd have a sufficiently impressive array of candidates for the office of president that name/connections wouldn't matter so much. but apparently not.
seriously, leaving aside whether you agree with people's politics, does anyone other than mccain and maybe hillary in the race really seem to have the experience you'd want in a president? rudi? barrack? edwards? what's with the newcomers to politics/national stage being considered legit candidates? i'm not saying i'd prefer some longtime senate blowhard, but you'd think there'd be better stuff on offer for the role of what's arguably most powerful job in world.
Persia and others: George P. Bush is the Jeb son who seems to have a promising future. I wasn't even aware of Jeb Jr.'s existence before now.
Next thing you know, we'll have two Roosevelts as President.
Funny how nobody mentioned name recognition as a factor - it's all branding now, you know.
the people highlighting the issue of dynastic politics, including Josh Marshall, Matt Y, and Andrew Sullivan, don't really seem to focus only, or even largely, on the trivial dimensions of political questions.
Anmik, Matt and Josh obviously can and do articulate substantive objections to a Hillary candidacy. They weren't who I was talking about. I strongly disagree about Sullivan -- his objections to Hillary are almost entirely rooted in his own compromised relationship to the trivia-obsessed political debates of the 1990s.
I rant because I feel like I've had to make this argument a dozen times, in response to tossed-off whiny posts about the B-C-B-C pattern. Last time it was at TAPPED, where some loser (no longer writing there) could come up with no better basis for objecting to a second Clinton presidency than (and I quote) "it's kind of lame".
I see this dynasticism meme as yet another bit of squishy, poorly-thought-out CW which under present circumstances just happens to cut disproportionately against the Democratic Party. Democrats have managed to invent a new idealistic standard against which only *their own frontrunner* falls short. Just watch as Republicans seize it and run with it if Hillary becomes the nominee.
Every Republican ticket since 1976 has had a Bush or a Dole on it. I looking to Liddie to keep the streak alive.
I don't like the prospect of a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sequence either. Dynastic politics are very common nonetheless. Just off the top of my head: Gore, Dodd, Ford, Chandler, Dingell, Kennedy, Landreu - and that's just a partial list of Democrats from political families. I would not be surprised if things haven't always been about the same.
I hear tell that dynasties even come in to play when you consider arts and letters, not just politics.
Damn those Adams'! They started it all!!
And now that Obama has been found to be a distant cousin of Dick Cheney, I think that more or less rules him out for the Presidency if we really want to be serious about putting a halt to this dynasticism.
Assuming the Democrats take the White House, I think Jeb running in '12 is a near certainty. People forget and name recognition matters a lot. I remember think in 1999 when GWB was being touted as the guy most likely to win, what, people want to return to the glory days of George Bush? Didn't we vote him out of office only 7 years ago?
Also, I think there is a certain royalist tendency lurking in the American voter--a feeling that longs to see a restoration of "their" dynasty.
Chelsea will be eligible to run for president in 2016. Will she? Don't count it out just yet.
Ryan, good point on the first response to my question. The idea that the Dems contort wildly to destroy their leading lights, on the grounds of ever-shifting bits of ideological purity, is well taken. But I'm not sure, in this instance, that the discomfort is misguided.
As for the second point, about Obama, well played. Seriously, that's funny. But not as funny as was Obama's response to hearing the news that he's related to Cheney. His quip only deepened my support for him, which remains, as ever, a mile wide. But now it's about an inch and a quarter deep. Improvement!
In other words, as with so many other Dems that I know, I'll support, vigorously, whichever candidate is nominated. With Clinton, though, that vigor will be somewhat tempered by my fretting about her establishment credentials -- and, to a much, much lesser extent, my qualms about dynasties.
I'm so tired of this Bush/Clinton dynasty. Let's push the hysteria back further and state that a Bush or a Clinton has been RUNNING for president since 1979. That's almost 30 years of dynasty! The fact is we've had three terms of Bushes in the presidency and two for the Clintons. Bush I had zero power as vice president. It actually strikes me as undemocratic to argue that Hillary should be disqualified just because her husband was president. Had she not been a very successful senator, she'd never be in the position she's in now, just like W. wouldn't have been his party's nominee if he hadn't won a second term in Texas. Besides, this country LIKES dynasties. We still moon over the Kennedys, who haven't been in the White House in 40 years.
anmik,
Yeah, the Obama remark was priceless -- possibly the best quip by a politician I can remember hearing.
Bottom line, I don't worry about dynasties because I'm confident the current pattern will end with Hillary (if she wins), while the other sorts of insider advantages will continue, unfortunately, to apply. I'm unenthusiastic about her candidacy for other reasons. Like many, I think, I suspect she'd be a very effective president on her own terms -- more so than her husband, quite possibly -- just not a terribly progressive one.
I hope you're right about dynasties being a statistical blip (though, given the sample size, not really a blip at all). And, as I suggested above, I share your views about HRC. If she's elected, I'm sure she'll be a relatively good president. But I do think that we're in a moment where distance from the DC foreign and domestic policy establishment would be a good thing. The government is filled with people who are part of a permanent professional class; they have much invested in upholding something like the status quo. And now seems a moment where we need real change in many of the most important policy realms. Because of her membership in that permanent class of political professionals, I don't see HRC as the most likely candidate to embrace those changes.
In short, if all of that is what you mean by "progressive," then I'm with you. But, I would note that I think that Matt Y and Josh M (not Andrew S., you're right to point out) are worried about similar issues when they write about dynasties. I don't think it's quite so wishy-washy as: "I can't bear the thought of another person with the name Clinton occupying the Oval Office." I know that's not what you're saying, that you've acknowledged that they go beyond that. So I suppose that I'm suggesting that many other people, some of whom you might be inclined to deride, do as well. Or not.
Re: if you think there's no chance jeb ever runs and wins, you don't have an even cursory understanding of american politics.
If you are talking about the current President's brother, he's a has-been, the bloom long since gone off that rose. He left Tallahassee just before the sh!t hit the fan in Florida (rather like John Engler up in Michigan, another one-time "rising star" in the GOP) and he looks a lot less successful in retrospect than he did in the razzle-dazzle flim-flam years, when galloping housing inflation made Florida look golde, and anyone who didn't act like an idiot during a hurricane looked like a hero instead. Besides which, his successor, Charlie Crist, is making him look like bad on all fronts and if any Floridian governor aims higher, I suspect it will be Crist, not Bush.
Why is this thought of as being so weird? The two families aren't really connected.
anmik,
Sounds like we agree on the merits of Clinton, and you may be right on the last point as well. Perhaps I've been hearing the vacuous version of the anti-dynastic argument from an unrepresentative sample. If so, I guess that says something about the people I hang out with and the blogs I read. :)
I think the key thing we agree on, it seems, is that we'd both like a candidate who'll move the nation beyond its current malaise. Worrying about dynasties is a lesser concern. So let's hope for the best.
Comments closed November 01, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Isn't he famously Hispanic as well? That might be another part of JB Jr.'s political relevance.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 18, 2007 11:07 AM