WASHINGTON, Sept. 28, 2007
Will America Have Bush-Clinton Fatigue?
The Dominance Of The Two Families In U.S. Presidential Politics Is Unprecedented
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With Hillary Rodham Clinton hoping to tack another four or eight "Clinton" years on to the Bush-Clinton-Bush presidential pattern that already has held sway for two decades, talk of Bush-Clinton fatigue is increasingly cropping up in the national political debate.
The dominance of the two families in U.S. presidential politics is unprecedented. (The closest comparisons are the father-son presidencies of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, whose single terms were separated by eight years, and the presidencies of fifth cousins Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, whose collective 20 years as president were separated by a quarter-century.)
"We now have a younger generation and middle-age generation who are going to think about national politics through the Bush-Clinton prism," said Princeton University political historian Julian Zelizer, whose first chance to vote for president was 1988, the year the first President Bush was elected. And as for the question of fatigue, Zelizer added: "It's not just that we've heard their names a lot, but we've had a lot of problems with their names."
And now, if Hillary Clinton were to be elected and re-elected, the nation could go 28 years in a row with the same two families governing the country. Add the elder Bush's terms as vice president, and that would be 36 years straight with a Bush or Clinton in the White House.
Already, for 116 million Americans, there has never been a time when there wasn't a Bush or Clinton in the White House, either as president or vice president.
Does a nation of 303 million people really have only two families qualified to run the show?
David Gergen, director of Harvard University's Center for Public Leadership and an adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, said there does seem to be concern about the possibility of giving "the two dynasties" another four or eight years.
"I think we would be fundamentally healthier if we broadened the zone of candidates who could make it to the top," he said.
Historically, politics has been open to newcomers who rise up to reflect the grass-roots sentiment of the country, Gergen said.
That's still possible, he said, "but it's harder than it used to be, especially because it's so hard to raise money" for expensive national campaigns.
The Clintons and Bushes, he said, have built up strong "brand" recognition for their names - just as the Kennedys did in an age of promise cut short by assassination - making it harder for newcomers to compete.
But sometimes, people just want to try something new.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken over the summer found that fully one-quarter of all Americans said that the prospect of having at least 24 straight years of a President Clinton or Bush would be a consideration in their vote for president in 2008.
Even among Democrats, 17 percent said it would be a consideration. That compared with a third of all Republicans.
The nation has changed dramatically since the first Bush claimed the Oval Office in 1988: Then, the Soviet Union was exploring the notion of perestroika, a public Internet was a promise waiting to be fulfilled, gasoline cost about $1 a gallon and Hillary Clinton was an associate still hoping to make partner at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark.
Clinton, now a two-term senator at age 59, has been asked about the long-standing Bush-Clinton grip on the Oval Office at two Democratic debates, and has a two-part response. She dumps on the Bush part of the historical equation and praises the Clinton component.
Asked in the CNN/YouTube debate in July whether adding another President Clinton to the Bush-Clinton-Bush sequence would bring about real change, Clinton had a ready comeback.
"Well, I think it is a problem that Bush was elected in 2000," she offered. "I actually thought somebody else was elected in that election."
When the question came up again in this week's debate in New Hampshire, she told the audience, "I thought Bill was a pretty good president."
She hastened to add that she's running on her own, and "I'm going to the people on my own."
Gergen said any fatigue factor Clinton faces is "overwhelmed by the positive nostalgia for Bill Clinton among Democrats."
The thought is seconded by Todd Gitlin, a professor at Columbia University's School of Journalism who has written a new book about national politics. He said that while some people are bothered by the dominance of the two families, "right now there is one massive fatigue in America and that is with George Bush. No other fatigue comes close."
But even if the issue is not a problem for Clinton, Gitlin said: "Is it a problem in some large sense that we seem to be alternating dynasties? Yes, I think democracy should be more expansive."
How long could this dynastic dynamic play itself out?
"Keep an eye on their children," Gergen quips.
And, there's always presidential brother Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida. His oldest son, George P. Bush, is considered likely to carry the family's political tradition into the next generation.
A Bush-Bush ticket for 2012? By George!
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Aristocracy
a government or state ruled by an elite, or privileged upper class.
Oligarchy
a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
Plutocracy
a government or state in which the wealthy class rules.- Reply to this comment
- In The Twilight Zone
Jim Kirwan
9-30-7
We officially entered the Twilight Zone when the Supreme Court intervened in the "election" of George W. Bush on 12-12-2000.
And with every passing day we are dragged deeper into the tangled nightmares created by our Outlaw government. Now six years in; ''we'' are being strangled in the myriad-tentacles of an unimaginably dangerous American Empire-and yet we seem to prefer the oblivion of denial to the pain of recognition or resistance.
While all this is going on the current fascination, designed as much for its distraction-capability, as for anything like substance -is the still pending ''elections of 2008.'' The ''democratic Star'' Hillary Clinton is being hailed as perhaps the best and brightest hope since whatever: Yet the 1990''s "Clinton''s" of which she was a part, were as complicit-if not even more responsible for the rise of Cheney-Bush than the hopelessly mindless republicans ever were.
- but hey - "forgive and forget" was as much a part of the Clinton years as their theme song: "Don''t Stop Thinkin about Tomorrow." They have obviously never have stopped ''thinkin about tomorrow'' ~ and well, just look where we are today!
http://www.rense.com/general78/tzone.htm - Reply to this comment
- You go around sprinkling your communist and liberal-homosexual agenda on these boards, and 97% of the readers can see what you are: a wimp, weak, spineless, feminized, and semi-illiterate. Nobody cares or wants to read a syllable of your tripe. Please, go eat sh*t and die.
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Posted by robertkjjj at 01:48 AM : Sep 29, 2007
You''re so out of touch with your feminine side robertkjjj.
Four More Top
GOP Outings Due?
From Ilene Proctor
proctor@anet.net
9-30-7
In the wake of closeted Sen. Larry Craig''''s self-outing in an airport men''''s room this summer, word from http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/61107
/ Washington says more revelations are coming about the secret sexual identities of two leading GOP senators, while two allegedly gay Republican congressmen are making headlines and drawing unwelcome attention to themselves, the timing of which could not be worse.
The senators are Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, from Kentucky. More about them below but first let''''s look at two allegedly closeted members of the House, representatives Patrick McHenry and David Drier, who have been in the news lately.
http://www.rense.com/general78/out.htm - Reply to this comment
- You go around sprinkling your communist and liberal-homosexual agenda on these boards, and 97% of the readers can see what you are: a wimp, weak, spineless, feminized, and semi-illiterate. Nobody cares or wants to read a syllable of your tripe. Please, go eat sh*t and die.
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Posted by robertkjjj at 01:48 AM : Sep 29, 2007
Four More Top
GOP Outings Due?
From Ilene Proctor
proctor@anet.net
9-30-7
In the wake of closeted Sen. Larry Craig''s self-outing in an airport men''s room this summer, word from http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/61107/ Washington says more revelations are coming about the secret sexual identities of two leading GOP senators, while two allegedly gay Republican congressmen are making headlines and drawing unwelcome attention to themselves, the timing of which could not be worse.
The senators are Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, from Kentucky. More about them below but first let''s look at two allegedly closeted members of the House, representatives Patrick McHenry and David Drier, who have been in the news lately.
http://www.rense.com/general78/out.htm - Reply to this comment
- The US has ''Crooked, Lying Dirtball Fatigue'' and as the Clintons and the Bushies are some of the most prominent crooked, lying dirtballs in the nation, yes, you could say we have ''Bush-Clinton fatigue''. But they are just the poster boys and girls for what Americans are tired of...We are tired of crooks, liars, incompetents...we are tired of high taxes, open borders, big government--yet getting little or nothing from the government but a demand for more taxes...we are tired of crooked corporations and thieves--like Bush''s friend Ken Lay--...we arre tired of War Pigs--like Cheney and the neo-scum vermin in the mass media....We are tired of the fear-mongering...the foul treatment of our veterans and servicemen....we are tired of the open borders and the anti-working-people trade treaties...we are tired of the vileness, the deviancy of the banker-regime in Washington...We are tired of the FED and its funny money.
Its way past time for a Revolution in this country! - Reply to this comment
- ***** Stop The War & Restore America *****
Why Don''t You Know Ron Paul??????
The corporate media will not give Ron Paul any Exposure. Because, NBC is owned by GE. GE is one of the world''s largest war-makers. They make things that go boom. They make $Billions on war. A Ron Paul administration would be bad for business. CNN is owned by AOL. Majority share holder is Saudi Royal Talal who is also partners with GHWBush in The Carlyle Group. Another major warmaker. And on and on. You get the picture. This is why they are doing a Media Blackout on him.
Because they don''t WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH!
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VOTE RON PAUL 2008! - Reply to this comment
- I think people are caught up in "none of the above" this time around. The campaign started early and is tough on the candidates. It takes a lot of money and where they get it is important. People want someone that can listen, discuss and lead. I do not think they care as much what their last name is.
- Reply to this comment
- This piece of Republiscum Party-engineered ********* is the most blatant use of the media in the attempt to sway people into thinking we''ve had enough of the Clintons...when the truth of the matter is it''s the rotten BUSH KLAN that we have had enough of...along with their filthy Republishit Party.
Articles like this serve to change NO ONE"S mind...except the cross-eyed evangelical biblesuckers who will readily agree with the flawed thinking displayed by the writer.
Disappointing that CBS would use such venal and juvenile tactics prior to a major election.
Goes to show who their Masters are. - Reply to this comment
- If Americans don%u2019t wake up their will be nothing left, our Nation is broke and Wall Street is the only people making a profit. While the Hidden inflation tax continues to rise and the value of the dollar declines. Ron Paul is the only one who truely understands this, and honestly if he is not elected America should be prepared for a real economic depression like it has never seen before.
Unless you want a North American Union and a new currency the "Amero" split with Canada and Mexico. And lose all your rights and freedom. Vote For Ron Paul 2008!
So my advice is to bypass the media and spread the word to your family and friends about him. The power of the People is far greater than a campaign spending 10''s of million to buy an image. Because this man is a real American Hero. He has dedicated his life to this country and everyone in it, and now he is trying to save it from disaster.
Spread The Word! Go Ron Paul 2008!
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Join The ReVoLuTiOn:
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/cities - Reply to this comment
- As to the Bush/Clinton issue, I''''d prefer someone other than Hillary, but I''''d still take her over another Bush any day of the week.
Posted by nolalou at 10:49 AM : Sep 28, 2007
But, what about Hillary''s Bush? - Reply to this comment
