With New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s political stock plummeting, pundits and journalists are now offering up another name as The Great Republican Establishment Hope: former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Which gives us this question from Booman:
Is Jeb Bush inevitable? Would another Clinton/Bush contest prove that we’re not a representative democracy but a “nepotistic oligarchy”?
Indeed, it would certainly suggest the United State is moving towards a situation that exists in India where yet another Gandhi is becoming dominant on the political scene. A political family brand name may matter. We may in future years see more Bushes, Clintons, Romneys — and Obama’s. Clinton-Bush would be one for the history books, to be sure.
The separate and valid question is whether these individuals have what it takes in terms of their political thought and character to erase suggestions that if it was Hillary Schmidlap and Jeb Slalachhini they’d be seen as potentially strong candidates.
But as Jeb’s mom has noted: if you have a famous political name that means you also own all of your kin’s political enemies.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.