Historian Doug Wead suggests an unlikely force that could help extend the Bush dynasty: Hillary Clinton. The Bushes are the Republican Party's most enduring modern dynasty when it comes to winning national office - a U.S. senator, a member of Congress, two governors, two presidents. As George W. Bush opens his book-promotion tour today, one goal is to restore a tarnished legacy that critics say has left voters disinclined to elect another Bush to office anytime soon. We write about book tour and Bush legacy today.
Wead, a one-time Bush adviser and author of books about the presidency, says if future Bushes - say, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or Austin real estate investor George P. Bush - decide to run for national office, Democrats might be reluctant to play the anti-dynasty card. Why? They have their own modern dynasty.
"In normal circumstances, if you have a Bush posturing for the presidency, the Democratic Party would denounce it and so discredit the idea of a dynasty and so label it that they couldn't emerge. But in the Clintons, where the wife had ambition, the electric fence is turned off. Because if Bill Clinton attacked the Bushes as a dynasty, he's ruining the chances of his own wife ... Hillary could have been shot down in normal circumstances by Republicans, but she wasn't. They didn't want to bring up the issue of dynasty because they have one in their own party. So you have a brief period where these dynasties can start to flourish - and they have. It's like the electric fences has been turned off and the cows are roaming the range."
Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/11/bush-dynastys-best-ally-the-cl.html
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