Independent UK: The dynasties of democratic America

[marmar]

Rupert Cornwell: The dynasties of democratic America
Should Hillary win, there'll be a Bush or Clinton as president for a quarter century
Published: 08 December 2007


By any yardstick, Union Station here, with its soaring Beaux-Arts decoration and magnificent Main Hall modelled on the baths of the emperor Diocletian in Rome, is a gorgeous jewel of Washington DC. But for those with the White House on their mind, it could a be a pretty miserable place.

Take Harry Truman as he slunk back into town at the nadir of his political fortunes, the day after a landslide gave Republicans control of Congress at the midterm elections of 1946. When the presidential train pulled in, so the story goes, just a single figure was waiting on the platform to meet him: a loyal but relatively little known under-secretary of state named Dean Acheson. Later, the Truman-Acheson tandem would go on to create the post-war world. But that morning, Union Station must have felt to Truman like the entrance to hell.

Not so, however, on Thursday evening, for another Democrat with the White House in her sights. On a frigid December night, with crisp snow on the ground and the Christmas lights twinkling, Union Station was truly magical. Fit, one could say, for an empress – or a queen.

The lady, of course, was Hillary Clinton, and the occasion was a fundraiser, dressed up in the trappings of a Christmas party. Worry not: my impartiality is intact. I was merely invited along by a friend who had raised some money for her campaign, and having never been to a fundraiser, I thought, why not?

In fact, if you take away the magnificent faux-Roman statues on the balcony and the Christmas decoration, what transpired was standard fare for a political rally. The master of ceremonies was the novelist John Grisham, a big name certainly, but not one to match Oprah Winfrey who will be doing the rounds with Barack Obama in Iowa today.

...(snip)...

Ditto Hillary Clinton. Yes, she is "smart, tough and experienced", according to the mantra recited the other evening. But is that why, according to the polls, three times as many Democrats want her to be president as her vastly experienced and surely no less deserving rivals Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson combined? And would she ever have been in a position to run for senator from New York, let alone have a serious chance of becoming the country's first woman president, had she not been married to Bill Clinton? The answer, obviously, is no. Name recognition is all.

If you want examples of systems that produce genuinely groundbreaking change, then look to Britain and the grocer's daughter Margaret Thatcher, to Israel and Golda Meir, daughter of a carpenter from Kiev, or Angela Merkel whose father was a pastor in vanished East Germany – or to an America that were to elect Barack Obama.

The above are all genuinely self-made politicians. The same cannot be said of Hillary Clinton, for all her manifest talents. And however festive the fundraiser in the splendour of Union Station the other evening, however well funded and organised her campaign, I have the suspicion the difference will catch up with her between now and November 2008. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article3233270.ece

[ClarkUSA]

1. It's interesting that we're not the only ones who have noticed the queenly pretensions of Hillary

The British have some knowledge of dynasties, after all. Hopefully, Americans will decline to support a Clinton II coronation in 2008.