The Los Angeles Times had a very interesting op-ed piece today which points out something that seems to be almost completely overlooked; say Hillary Clinton is elected President in 2008 and again in 2012, by the times she leaves office in 2017 that would have been 28 straight years of someone named either Bush or Clinton in the White House! This is even worse if you consider the 8 years George H.W. Bush served as Ronald Reagan’s Vice President…that would be 36 years!

As the article points out, when George Washington turned down a 3rd term as President and later Thomas Jefferson warned of an “unnatural aristocracy” they would likely not be happy with this potential situation. Though America is not supposed to have an oligarchy (that is where the power of the government rests with only a small, elite segment of society) that seems to be what is evolving. What are the odds that both the son of George H.W. Bush and the wife of Bill Clinton would be the best people out of 200 million + citizens to run the country at the times they were elected? Not very good.

While Daily Kos makes a good argument that Bill Clinton would likely never have been President without Hillary; Hillary would almost for sure never have been a Senator from New York, a state which she was not even from, if she was no the wife of a former President. And were she not a Senator from New York would she be running for President now? No.

This is one of the very same reasons I could never justify voting for George W. Bush in the 2000 election (among other things…); would George W. Bush ever have been in the position to run for President if his father was never a Vice President or President? Again, no. Obviously name recognition is a huge part of elections and politics in general, but in the age of the Internet and mass media, it shouldn’t have to lead like situations like this with the Clintons and the Bushes.

To take it a step further, it would seem that the people of this country despite the strength of that name recognition still don’t want relatives of former Presidents in office. The LA Times lays this out perfectly:

“Three times in American history have close relatives of former presidents won the office. John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, lost the popular vote to Andrew Jackson in 1824 but won in the electoral college amid charges of a “corrupt bargain.” Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry Harrison, lost the popular vote to Grover Cleveland in 1888 and also suffered as a “minority president” and mere figurehead. George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000.”

In the 3 times where a relative of a former President has first been elected, the person elected actually lost the popular vote all three times! That is perhaps another argument for why we should get rid of or at least drastically alter the electoral college, but that is another topic…

Lets elect someone beside a member of the Clinton or Bush family in 2008. And lets not keep bringing up Jeb Bush’s name as a potential 2012 or 2016 candidate. Let’s not even get into Jeb’s son or Chelsea for the years after that… Lets get some originality in this country’s politics, some fresh thoughts.