My must read of the day is "Jeb, Hillary, and the curse of tarnished political brands," by Jonah Goldberg, in the Los Angeles Times:
Populists of the left and the right like to focus on the more sinister problems of dynasties — the suspicion that the elites have rigged the system in favor of a few powerful families. It sometimes sounds like we're discussing lines of European nobility swapping out turns on the throne. But in America, where leaders have to run for office, a more useful way to think about dynasties might be to think of them as brand names.
In chaotic and confusing marketplaces, brand names are a useful shortcut. People buy stuff from Apple because they think they know what they'll get from Apple. The same goes for Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons and, these days, Pauls. (If Rand weren't the son of Ron, his political persona would be very different.)
From this perspective, the effort to lump the Clintons and the Bushes into the category of political dynasties tends to distract us from the very real differences in their brands.
Remember when Barbara Bush offered this insight on why her son should not run in 2016:
"I think this is a great American country, great country, and if we can't find more than two or three families to run for high office, that's silly … there are other families. I refuse to accept that this great country isn't raising other wonderful people."
I agree with her, but I’m not typically aghast at the fact that there are some big political families.
There’s a tendency to paint the involvement of these families as something ominous, but maybe it’s not. Like Goldberg notes, people go with what they know. These last names, for better or worse, are brand names.
That’s not to say these families should automatically appear in elections and continuously hold political offices—but it’s a reasonable explanation as to why they so often do.
Brand names provide us a sense of comfort (sometimes rightfully so). There’s an inherent trust with those kinds of names. I’m sure the generic "cola" tastes fine, but I know the real Coke is great—so why would I want that other kind?
There’s comfort in certainty, and we can never get it in politics. Maybe these last names get us the closest to a feeling of certainty and that’s why we latch on.