The Cranky Professor

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December 22, 2008

Why Dynasticism Happens and an Apologist for the Kennedy Dynasty

This is about the best explanation for why we're seeing dynasticism now that I've read so far, at Politico.

"Who wants to go into politics today except people who are born into it?" opines veteran Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. "It's not pleasant, it's full of incessant disclosure and oversight, you have no personal life. You don't meet the best class of people. If it isn't in the family, who would do it? The other alternative is the very rich, who can afford to go into it."

And why this dynasty would be a good thing for Progressives, from Al Giordano:

On a policy level, it would be an even more brilliant move from the perspective of liberalism and progressivism: Attorney Kennedy is underestimated by some only because she's lived by the "no drama" approach to politics long before Obama made it popular. Most people have little idea of her accomplishments because her style has been to seek results not credit for them. I know, because in the 1990s, as political reporter for the Boston Phoenix, I covered the Kennedy family and all its doings - including Ted Kennedys 1994 reelection battle against Mitt Romney - very closely. Caroline, at the helm of the Kennedy library, has served as the true executive director of the family and all its political and policy interests. She has also been the family's ambassador nationwide and around the world: the one that attended funerals and other matters of statesmanship on the family's behalf. That she generally avoided the spotlight in doing so, and always avoided personal scandal - a particularly difficult challenge for anybody named Kennedy - is testimony to her skill and finesse at the political game.

The Kennedy policy machine is nothing to shake a stick at: Senator Ted Kennedy has, during 46 years in the Senate, installed a generation of policy wonks as lead staffers on almost all the key committees in the upper house of the Capitol dome, and no small number in the lower one. When Teddy nods his head subtly in a given policy direction that network marches as an army and has steamrolled over Republican and business interests time and time again. When progressive legislation has been passed - when reactionary legislation has been killed - on civil rights and liberties, health care, jobs and wages, education, and on other issues, the fingerprints of current and former Kennedy staffers have been on each and every one, even as Teddy shined the spotlight on other legislators who took the public lead. Joe Biden and John Kerry are among the Senate veterans that have benefited from Kennedy's generosity when it comes to sharing or assigning credit.

Paterson and New York, thus, would not just be getting a Senator. They would get, with Caroline, the driver with the keys to the most finely tuned and influential progressive national political network in American politics, reaching (in many cases invisibly) into levers of power in all branches of government and in many states far from Massachusetts, including among the networks planted by the Southern Civil Rights movement and among Hispanic-American political leaders and organizations from Texas to California for whom "Tio Ted" has been mentor and unflinching ally. (The Kennedys have long been central to the push for multi-racial movements in US politics, one that just became realized with Obama's election as never before: that will also serve Attorney Kennedy and so many of her constituents well in New York.)

I find this vision of the Kennedy machine terrifying - and the idea that Caroline is the quiet consigliere to take control of it an excellent reason to oppose her appointment.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at December 22, 2008 9:49 AM

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Posted by: Jasper at December 24, 2008 1:01 AM

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