THERE’S A REASON WE DON’T LET brothers marry a sister, or a first cousin marry a first cousin. Inbreeding is bad for a population.
As a society we dislike the concept of the dynasty in this country. We have no real royalty, thankfully, even though we do frequently confer “favorite son/daughter” status on the candidates. What that really means is that some people have greater name recognition, due to their father or mother, or sometimes their brothers or sisters careers in politics, and occasionally their spouses.
This is the situation for Hillary Clinton. She is walking in the shadow of her husband. His status as a former president is a major stumbling block for many people to her ascendancy to the presidency. The Clinton name confers an instant recognition on her, and should she become the 44th president of the United States, she would be participating in a system that allowed two families to run the country for a minimum of 24 years.
That doesn’t sound like a long time, but at the end of the first term of a Clinton presidency, when we would have been around as a nation for 236 years, that would mean over 10 percent of our history we were led by two families — the Clintons and the Bushes.
Which is why I think that many people are supporting U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. When I speak with people around Santa Monica I frequently hear that the idea of a political dynasty scares them. The idea that as a country we could be led by a small group of political zealots is fundamentally an un-American idea. We like change, we like “the new.” We are not a hidebound society that slavishly holds on to an aristocracy, well beyond their usefulness.
At least, that is the hope of America. The reality is that we will allow ourselves to slip into a routine of consistent leadership from those who find their constituencies and stick to them.
“The new.” — The idea that as a country we could be led by a small group of political zealots is fundamentally an un-american idea. We like change, we like We are not a hidebound society that slavishly holds on to an aristocracy, well beyond their usefulness
Locally, we need only look to our own council to see that though we speak change, we vote consistency. The incumbents have an edge, they always have, they always will. It’s the power of the position, which allows an established voice to speak louder than one that is calling for change.
It is an old saying that youth and enthusiasm will lose to age and treachery. Sadly, like most sayings, this one is true more often than not. For us locally, that means that the entrenched forces of the political world here will likely remain in power. As a nation it means that though the Youtube generation likes Obama, the Clinton return to power is the safer bet.
I think that the Iowa Caucus is a very different experience from walking into a voting booth alone, and choosing a president. I think that it is easier to get the youth engaged in a group event, one that is sold as a party, than it is to get a 20-year-old to leave his Xbox at home, and go out on a cold November day to pick a leader. That is a job that an older voter, one that feels the weight, and more importantly understands the dangers, in picking a leader. That is why, traditionally it is the older voter who decides elections, and in this coming presidential election, that will likely mean Hillary is the better candidate for us as a nation.
I say this because of my nightmare scenario; Obama does awesome in the primaries, he pulls in the youth for the early efforts, he rallies the troops to get enough momentum to win the nomination, Huckabee is the Republican candidate and in the race for the White House Obama doesn’t pull enough youth votes in to win, and we end up with W Redux in the form of President Huckabee.
I believe there is also the distinct possibility that some redneck yokel with the IQ of a carrot will decide that he’d rather be in jail than see a black man in the White House, and he assassinates Obama, in which case the Democrats have a major problem on their hands. The damage that this would do to race relations in this country is unfathomable.
So, as much as I say I don’t like dynasties, I think we may end up with one, and that frankly, it may be the best thing for the country. At least for now.
DAVID PISARRA is a Family Law Attorney in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 8, 2008. Read the original PDF.