Keeping it in the family..

In light of a few interesting news articles and shows regarding Chelsea Clinton's conspicuous position in her mother's campaign and how the past problems of their family are coming to haunt her, I have been thinking about how important the political family really is. When you think back recently presidents have certainly been critiqued or praised based on their nuclear and extended family. For example, the Kennedy's are certainly an important political family whose members have exercised all sorts of political offices and roles. The Kennedy family members all affect one another greatly during campaigns and terms of office. The name carries a lot of weight even today as we saw with the attention that the Kennedy endorsements of Obama got. The Bush's of course are another political family who are incredibly influential and important in each other's political endeavors. George Bush has often been criticized for trying to fight his father's war or impress his father by his strong tactics in Iraq. Jeb Bush has also taken somewhat of a political hit because of the animosity towards his brother.

And now, we see the past failings of President Clinton affecting Hillary's campaign. Chelsea Clinton has been heavily involved with her mother's campaign and has recently received questions at two talks that she has given regarding her father's infidelity and whether it sheds a poor light on her mother's credibility. These videos shows her response to the first question and then the second :


To both questions Chelsea responded that it was none of the student's business and refused to answer the question. At the second question she added that people should vote for her mother based on her mother, not her father. I think there is a lot of truth to that statement, and Bill's failings should not reflect negatively on Hilary. I think what people are more interested in is whether Hillary stayed with Bill for political reasons, or whether they truly worked it out. This is something we will never know so there is really no point in speculating about it. Even so, it really does not matter much to her overall campaign.

Yet, I do think it is interesting how wrapped up people get in the family affairs of our presidents and our candidates. Should one's family reflect badly on them as a person? We all have that one family member who does things that we don't approve of, do we feel that they are a reflection of who we are? Obviously, in many cases family members are very close with the candidates or leaders so it can be a different situation I just think it is an interesting thing to think about in our current election and to recognize in those of the past.