The Bush Dynasty
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer David Paul Kuhn reports from the Republican National Convention.
With a sitting president, a former president and the governor of Florida in the family, the Bush dynasty is well established – and comparisons to the Kennedys are inevitable.
On Tuesday night, young George Prescott Bush will speak before the 2,500 delegates at the Republican National Convention. Two hours later, his aunt, first lady Laura Bush, headlines.
Thursday night, Jenna and Barbara Bush will introduce their father the president at the conclusion of the four-day GOP rally. Through it all, former President George H.W. Bush watches proudly from his Madison Square Garden skybox, while Gov. Jeb Bush watches from Florida.
American politics has rarely seen one family as dominant as the Bushes are now. Not since the Kennedys has any family held such influence over the policy of the United States.
Pound for political pound, the Bushes have surpassed the Kennedys in positional power. Still, the Kennedy legacy pervades Americana like none other.
"I think the difference is stylistic. The Bushes don't carry themselves as American royalty as the Kennedys did," said Peter Schweizer, author of "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty."
"Going to Hyannisport and playing touch football is not the same as the Bushes, who have barbecues and eat pork rinds," says Schweizer.
But where the Kennedy influence seems on the decline, as patriarch Ted Kennedy ages, the Bushes are at their apex. At the Republican convention in New York, the Bush name is everywhere.
This is a nation without aristocracy. With the Constitution forbidding titles of nobility, political dynasties have had to suffice. In 50 years, the Bush family has moved onward and upward. Two presidents so far – and who knows what's to come.
"It is really quite remarkable how much they've done in a half a century. But George H.W. Bush wasn't thinking dynastically when he went to Texas," said Stephen Hess, a presidential historian at The Brookings Institution and author of several works on American political families. "The difference between the Bushes and the Kennedys: old Joe Kennedy wanted his family moving up in political office."
The Bush patriarch, Sen. Prescott Sheldon Bush of Connecticut, left Congress in early January 1963. Less than a year later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It was the third child lost by the former American ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Kennedy.
Joseph Kennedy lost another son five years later, as Robert F. Kennedy was killed while running for the Oval Office. Both RFK's and JFK's sons would die young, too – Bobby Kennedy's from drugs and John Kennedy's from a plane crash.
Joseph's fourth son Sen. Edward "Teddy" Kennedy of Massachusetts retains great influence, as the "Liberal Lion" of the Senate. The family's best hope though, may be a Republican who married in – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, husband of Maria Shriver. Schwarzenegger headlines Tuesday night's GOP convention.
Prescott Bush's son, George H.W. Bush, rose to the vice presidency for two terms, and the presidency for one. His grandsons served as governors of two of the most powerful American states, Florida and Texas.
Jeb Bush remains governor of Florida, arguably the most pivotal electoral state. George W. Bush, of course, has gone from Texas to Washington.
Thursday night, before millions on television and tens of thousands in Madison Square Garden, President Bush will accept his party's nomination and near the last stretch of attaining what his father could not – a second term in the White House. The Bushes have always been competitive.
"The Kennedy's came from that Irish Catholic background and in a sense elevated themselves to the Eastern establishment," Schweizer said. "The Bushes have done the opposite, they have the bloodlines," but, Schweizer adds, "the sons have moved away."
America has known other political dynasties besides the Kennedys and the Bushes – the Adams and Tafts being predominant. Oregon Gov. Bob Taft's father and grandfather served in the Senate; his great-grandfather, William Howard Taft, was president and then chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the Adams' are long gone from the political scene and the Tafts are no longer national players, while the Bush and Kennedy names remain potent.
"I don't know what the future will bring with either family," presidential historian Hess said. "They are both going to be around for awhile. The Kennedys ran out of steam at some point. This generation [of Bushes] is not over yet. One is running for president and the other could very well."
By David Paul Kuhn