Nepotism and dynasty are the politico-sociological phrases of the week, and Democrats who are digesting the possibility of Caroline Kennedy becoming a U.S. senator because she is Caroline Kennedy are concluding that the criticism is not entirely without merit. Using the word "nepotism" to describe the Kennedy situation is inaccurate. Kennedy is a legacy; her family is not in charge of the process of selection and does not exert any formal influence on the process. Legacies benefit from the social characteristics imputed to their families; their values, ideals and informal social influences. President John Adams appointed his son, John Quincy to be ambassador plenipotentiary to Prussia; JQA made peace with Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. The elder Adams worried about the appearance of nepotism, but his argument was sound: John Quincy was one of the very few Americans who had spent considerable time overseas, who knew the diplomatic causeways, and who the president trusted to handle the account. The Adams dynasty survived many iterations, but by the time of Franklin Roosevelt -- for whom family lineage was so important that he married his second cousin -- Henry Adams lived across from the White House and was treated as a benevolent, inconsequential wise man. Americans have a habit of protesting dynasties as being violations of our civic creed, which, since the advent of Jacksonian Democracy, has helped to temper the rewards of birth when it comes to competition in the political sphere. Growing up in a political family can anethetize budding politicians to the vagaries of politics, but, at the same time, a passion for public service can be cultivated rather quickly. We want good people in politics; we want good sons and daughters of good politicians to continue their legacies.
Now -- it's an entirely fair point -- Democrats, the self-named advocates of the common man, of an enlightened meritocracy, have a rising number of high-profile dynasty candidates, candidates who, by the accident of birth, have found themselves in a privileged position. Might this trend be mitigated by the advent of Obama Democrats? Consider that Democrats in 2008 had an opportunity to pick up a lot of Senate seats. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee recruited candidates who could hit the ground running with name ID and the ability to raise funds, like Mark Udall in Colorado and cousin Tom Udall in New Mexico. Still -- dynastic considerations won't clear the field and aren't guarantors of anything. Another Udall cousin, Sen. Gordon Smith, was defeated, as were the GOP's two dynasty candidates -- incumbent John Sununu in New Hampshire and Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina At what point do committees like the DSCC have a 'social obligation' to recruit and signal their support of candidates of quality and promise -- think of Barack Obama circa 2003, 2004 -- as opposed to clearing the field for the Udalls and Kennedys?
Is it possible for the Democratic to really be, at once, the party of Obama of Hawaii, Hyde Park, Kansas and Kenya -- and also the party of legacies?
On the other hand, it is difficult, in a year in which Obama defeated a former first lady, and then the son and grandson of Navy Admirals, to make the case of a Dem-lead noblesse oblige-apalooza. Not the nobility of family or birth, at least.
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