Is the American public in love with dynasty?

[Lurking Dem]

I don't want Hillary any more than I want Jeb!

Why does there seem to be a fascination with political dynasties in this country? Was it the promise of Bobby? or is it more romantic in nature than that?

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Perhaps We're Seeing How Monarchies Developed

People do seem to have a strange attraction to dynasties these days.

[Stevepol]

2. The American people are disenfranchised at the moment.

To ask any question about the "fascination" of the American public with this or that is to ask an unanswerable question.

Since there's no reason to have confidence in any election in the US, how is it possible to know what Americans' attitudes are about anything?

Once the vote counting is done transparently by human hands, at the very least thru truly random and fair and robust audits, then it might be possible to speculate about this or that.

[Lurking Dem]

3. So we don't know that the

Dems just swept Congress? Public polling? Letters to the editor? DU posts?

[Kelly Rupert]

4. So is your thesis that the Democrats didn't win?

Or is it that they're also tools of the (elite/corporatists/capitalists/Zionists/illuminati/whatever)?

[The2ndWheel]

5. Is there a choice?

The slow but ever present movement of consolidation doesn't really give us an alternative.

[Lurking Dem]

6. That's an interesting thought.

Maybe some serious campaign finance reform would change that?

[The2ndWheel]

10. Might push the problem into the future a bit

Unless there is a continuous, and always increasing, pumping of energy into the political system. But in our increasingly specialized world(including the actual election day, or even month if that were to ever happen), that becomes less and less likely.

Taking out how they got it, there's a reason the founding fathers had to go to an entirely new continent to change anything, and even then they had to fight an imperial army.

I'm not saying don't do campaign finance reforms, just expect to be tougher and tougher each time you try, since everyone is in their own little iPod world these days(except the special days). There's nothing wrong with that, unless you're trying to fight the fight against entropy.

[Skidmore]

7. There's always a choice, but not always the will for change.

Regardless of how a few families try to monopolize the political process, the votes of faceless masses ultimately place them there. We saw in this last election that the strength of the individual vote is not to be discounted. Instead of pushing the party machinery to spit out a brand, let us get the party to produce work for the people.

I will not vote for Hillary. We do not need a coronation. We do not need a brand or a packaged product. We need a leader.

[The2ndWheel]

13. Which comes first?

"the votes of faceless masses ultimately place them there."

"We need a leader."

Are we being represented, or is someone representing us?

[HughBeaumont]

8. We've always been, and are still, fascinated with the British royals.

Although that fascination has waned in recent years, the American media has always emulated their British counterparts when discussing and gossiping about our own royal families, being the Bushes and the Clintons. And that fascination came part and parcel from the Kennedys to the House of Windsor; from magazines like the Enquirer and the Star and People reporting on Princess Di's every move.

Let's face it: Americans love the familiar. They generally don't adapt well to change. I seriously believe Lancelot Link was in the 2000 running due to his name (and a little election fraud, and Poppy's team, and your daddy's conservacronies on the Supreme Court doesn't hurt matters). It sure as shit wasn't because of his gubernatorial record, which had Texas in the basement for every educational, environmental and social issue tracked.

But he was a Bewsh and people knew the name. The association with Reagan helped a lot too. Remember, the American people are far more bamboozled with the Fantasia that was the Reagan administration; the people on this site know better.

[Lurking Dem]

11. "Lancelot Link"

Bwaaaa!

[seabeyond]

9. i really really dont either, precisely for this reason. n/t

[spillthebeans]

12. Poppy could run again.

You aren't getting a real choice, this has been and probably will be the fate of the US

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/09/politics/main1600694.shtml

[napi21]

14. I don't think people are talking about Hillary being Prez because

she's a Clinton, but because she is a strong decisive woman, who has been a good Senator, and has good ideas. If anything, being a Clinton is a hinderance rather than a help to her.

I've often wondered why the US has never had a female Prez. I'd think about Mergaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Angela Merkel.... Are Americans sooo backwardand sexist in their thinking, that they always resort to thinking the only leaders we can have are old white men? But then I would ask myself what women do I know would make a good Prez? If there were NO BIAS at all, who would I choose? That was a very difficult question to answer. Ireally do think Hillary has the strength, self control, and leadership presence to be a good Prez. There aren't very many American women who fit that bill.

[Lurking Dem]

16. You're right about that.

She probably would be a decent President. BUT....

only if she had a Democratic Congress. And the campaign would be, I feel, so divisive that the party could split.

Are we that backward? Yes, I think we probably are.

[Skidmore]

17. I disagree.

I think that coming wrapped in the Clinton name helped her there to greatly to get where she is, regardless of her work.

[napi21]

18. Certainly name recognition helped, but I wonder if it also didn't harm a lot too?

Many people were watching her every move when she first became a Senator, and constantly saying she couldn't do the job and would fail miserably...until SHE proved them wrong! She has been undeer a lot more scrutiny than any of the other Senators, male or female.

[Skidmore]

19. I think she is a fine senator for NY, but I do think the nation

needs a break from the Bush and Clinton families both. We need fresh faces and new ideas and to break the entrenched battle lines that have been drawn by these to factions over the past 20 years. Enough already.

[izzybeans]

15. Yep. My sentiments exactly. Dynasties in a democracy are just rotating elites

if they aren't mirror images of each other its because of merely minor refractions caused by even more minor differences in constitution.