Posted on 12/19/2014 4:46:17 AM PST by HomerBohn
Earlier this week Jeb Bush announced he was setting up a political committee to explore a presidential candidacy. Hillary Clinton has been exploring a presidential candidacy for months and perhaps years. Polls show Clinton with a wide lead for the Democratic nomination and Bush as a leading competitor for the Republican nomination.
All of which leaves many people, some of them admirers of one or both potential candidates, queasy. Out of 319 million people in America, will our 45th president be the son of the 41st and brother of the 43rd or the wife of the 42nd? The United States is a republic. Have we developed a dynastic, royal form of politics?
These two dynastic candidates have legitimate claims on the office. Bush was elected to two terms as governor of Florida, likely to be our third most populous state when the Census Bureau presents its population estimates for 2014. Clinton was elected to two terms in the U.S. Senate in New York, our third most populous state at the time, and served four years as secretary of state.
Both arguably performed competently, and both have shown resilience, a quality needed in a president. Bush rebounded from political defeat in 1994 and fierce attacks after the disputed Florida recounts in 2000. Clinton rebounded from humiliation after the Hillarycare debacle and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Lesser mortals would have sought obscurity to avoid public embarrassment. Both persevered and went on to significant achievements in public life.
Of course, they are not perfect candidates. Clinton is at odds with the left wing of her party on foreign policy and financial issues. Bush is under attack on education and immigration from many on the right wing of his. But either one of them could end up as president.
Such dynastic politics seems odd to many Americans. But when you look around the world at other large democracies, it is commonplace. Members of the Nehru-Gandhi family have been prime ministers of India (population 1.2 billion) in 37 of its 67 years as an independent republic. Daughters of presidents have been elected president of Indonesia (252 million), the Philippines (101 million) and South Korea (50 million). The current Philippine president’s mother was also president.
Aecio Neves, narrowly defeated this year for president of Brazil (204 million), is the grandson of Tancredo Neves, who was elected president in 1985. On the Internet you can see a photo of the 5-year-old Shinzo Abe, re-elected last weekend as prime minister of Japan (127 million), with his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, who was prime minister at the time.
What advantage do dynastic candidates have in very large democracies? It’s rooted, I think, in the fact that voters make their choices not only on the basis of policies but on character. They are aware that character can make a crucial difference in performance. Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain were members of the same party, but they performed differently in office.
And if you want to understand the character of a candidate, it helps if you know the family. In large democracies, citizens come to know a lot about the families of heads of government. They understand that all members of a family are not the same. But they know that they tend to share certain characteristics and values. You see the same thing at holiday gatherings of your own extended families.
In the early years of the United States, there was little interest in or publicity about the families of presidents. That changed when Theodore Roosevelt, with his brood of unruly children, became president in 1901. He presided at the White House wedding of his daughter Alice to a future speaker of the House and walked his niece Eleanor down the aisle as she married a future president. For almost 20 of the first 45 years of the 20th century two very talented Roosevelt cousins were president of the United States.
The success of the Roosevelts and the long prominence of the Kennedy family have put a patina of legitimacy on dynastic politics in this country. That doesn’t mean dynastic candidates don’t have to prove themselves.
But it has left room for scions with records of their own — Edward Kennedy, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush — to run for president. It seems weird that two Yale Law School students who married or two brothers raised in an unprepossessing house in Midland, Texas, should both become presidents. But it could happen.
As far as Jeb is concerned, two Bushes were quite enough, thank you.
H-E-Double Toothpicks!!! If these two are what we have to choose from next election, I may even consider moving to Canada!!!!!!
In its attempt to hype presidential nominees for Americans, the fifth-column leftist media have gone from “scraping the bottom of the barrel” to “back-flushing the septic tank.”
Yeah, sure--- "opportunity and justice for everyone"----just as long as you're not one of those stupid mental defectives taking up space in Democrat Utopia.
Democrats say the historic nature of a Hillary run could lead to a different, but still vibrant, electorate....the first woman president would likely generate outsized enthusiasm among young and single female voters, which could offset drops in other parts of the electorate. "Women will love it, and so will other groups, including young voters”...Democrats say.
Bullhockey....midterm reality looms large. The women's vote was a bomb---only one of the women Hillary campaigned for won. Candidates mentioning the War on Women nonsense were laughed off the stage. Texas' Abortion Darling collapsed and so did Sandra "The Vagina" Fluck.
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CLINTON GRUBERING---Bill is already laying the groundwork for Hillary---hoping "stupid Americans" will ignore the details.
"We had 100 times as many people move from poverty into the middle class," Bill Clinton told an appreciative audience during a cocktail hour hosted by POLITICO, marking the 10th anniversary of the Clinton Presidential Center. "This shows the importance of policy," he continued. "We can do this again.”
Clinton plumb "forgot" MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber crunched those numbers for the ever-ambitious Clintons....basing the numbers on the Clintons' knee-bending abortion worship. Read on.
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World Net Daily reported November 14, 2014
BY Jerome R. Corsi / FR Posted by Cincinatus' Wife
NEW YORK – Obamacare architect, Jonathan Gruber, (exposed for his frank admissions that passing Obama's signature legislation required lying to "stupid" Americans)......published a paper during the Clinton administration observing that legalizing abortion saved the government $14B in assistance to economically disadvantaged mothers, including African Americans.....and lowered crime.
MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber argued in his Clinton paper that without the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, “marginal children” would have been born to many poor mothers. Gruber said statistics show these aborted children would have been 70 percent more likely to live in a single-parent family, 40 percent more likely to live in poverty, 50 percent more likely to receive welfare and 35 percent more likely to die as an infant.
Economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner in their bestselling 2005 book, “Freakonomics,” relied on MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber’s work to argue that legalizing abortion was responsible for an approximately 50 percent reduction of crime in major urban centers in the early 1990s. more at wnd.com
JEB and HILLARY = NO DIFFERENCE
Jeb and Evita need to be on the SAME ticket... that way America can get them BOTH out of their system, once and for all. :)
I’ll say it again: NO MORE BUSHES, NO MORE CLINTONS!
"White privilege" denotes the array of advantages the Clintons have cultivated over years in public office. The gold-plated, endless perks of "white privilege" include:
<><> their personal massive wealth in the $2 billion range....
<><> ownership of multiple homes in posh enclaves....
<><> unknown secret offshore bank accounts...
<><> unrevealed investment profits...
<><> the chain of high public offices they've held....
<><> privileged friends in high places....
<><> global connections....
<><> constant affirmations of their own worth....
<><> greater social status...
<><> the expansive freedoms wealth and connections provide...
<><> unlimited access to the press to speak freely.....
<><> their memoirs made millions....
<><> Dec 2000 book deal $8 million; 2014 book deal $14 mill....
<><> three tax-exempt Clinton family foundations worth hundreds of millions....
<><> Clinton foundation "endowment" skyrockets to $200 million overnight....
<><> Hillary/Bill's endless $2-300,000 speeches.......
<><> Hillary's 24/7 chauffeur the last 20 years....
<><> Bill's tax-paid cushy pensions/benefits....
<><> tax-paid Clinton Library (Hollywood honey Sultan of Brunei a donor).....
<><> Chelsea's paid-for $10 million uber-condo.
2016 Hillary was relying on the "income equality" bugaboo to hoist herself into office......as good a definition of "white privilege" as any. The Clintons strategy is to label others as "different" while presenting themselves as "normal."
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The Clinton "normal" is couple billion dollars laying around, accumulated without ever having a real job. The Never-Enough Clintons had planned to run a populist campaign, critical of the Wall Street types”....that's after the world was informed that speaker Hillary was pocketing $200,000 a throw from Goldman Sachs.....and other corporate giants.
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THEY MADE WALL STREET PROUD The Clintons went from "dead broke" to multi-billionaires in an astonishing short period of time----without holding jobs. The greedy, mega-wealthy Clintons have money pouring in from everywhere without lifting a finger...said to be worth couple BILLION dollars.
Never-enough Bill/Hillary look to cash in w/ another go-round in the White House. The Clintons owe bigtime......money is pouring into their three tax-exempt foundations......and these donors expect payback.
After a long career of avoiding Federal Prison, and mucking things up as an unelected, 'co-President', a failed Secretary of State and a do-nothing Senator, she thinks she's ready to stumble out of alcohol rehab and really make a mess of the mess we're in.
Comparing notes?
I want the 45th to be A CONSERVATIVE!!!! Not the son and brother of president or the wife of a rapist.
Poor Hillary.
She’s haunted by the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt (which would make many stomachs churn) and Vincent Foster whose murder she’ll never forget.
Oh. Wait a minute. She might just forget that one as well as the pile of dead bodies that she and the serial rapist left behind; she to become the senator from New Yarkansas and then, her final glory, the secretary of state, while Billy Goat continued to engage in sexual romps and big bucks’ speaking engagements.
She leaves dead people behind her like the Treasury Department prints monopoly money.
Barry works hard to catch up.
So many though of our little Republican primary voters are staying awake nights dreaming of a third Bush. As Ann Richards would have said, “they cain’t he’p it.”
Rick LAZY-O might even endorse HRC this time if he can stay out of “her space”, what a joke opponent only NY Republicans could muster.
She doesn’t require “qualifications” for the kinds of people who adore her.
No, the American people truly believe there is a difference between HRC and Jebbie, and they are for HRC no matter what.
Rush suggested that the other day. He said Bush/Clinton or Clinton/Bush no difference! Not against, with.
The problem is, those A-mer-ree-cans that are swimming in that cess pool of gov-mint given free dollars, will vote for the Beast. The idiots of the RINO party will vote for another stinking Bush. ‘Cept, this man is done voting for the “lesser of two evils.” Evil is evil as far as I am concerned. I am also finished voting to keep the other guy out. “If, if, if we don’t vote for the fool Romney, we will get Obama!!” Really??? Romney, the father of the first RomneyCare free government insurance, is as bad as his daddy Obama. They are both the same. I did not vote for either of them, O-Romney or O-Hussein. I refuse to do it any more. I simply skip over the election that does not have a candidate that is anywhere near my personal beliefs, my conservative beliefs and principals, AND the MOST Important, that fall in line with what my LORD teaches. Yes, that makes my voting few. But, so be it. I can take all the ridicule of the whiners on this web site much better than I will face my Savior and attempt to explain to Him why I did what I did. He doesn’t accept excuses. Thus, I will not vote against Him. THAT I will live with Him forever with.
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