Predictably, all the conservative columnists are hammering the apparent momentum to give Hillary Clinton's old Senate seat to Caroline Kennedy.
Kathleen Parker, who never met a topic she couldn't hit five or six time, hit is this morning and has more available on the subject for tomorrow.
Charles Krauthammer, the angriest man in America, is chasing the same scent.
Both of them seem to be making the same point: We're a meritocracy (or should be) not an aristocracy, and Caroline Kennedy hasn't done anything thing to earn her way into office.
Her only qualification is her family tree: One martyred president for a father, a martyred senator for an uncle, a living legend of the Senate for another uncle, and an SEC Chairman for a grandfather.
Good lineage, if you’re aiming for the House of Lords, they say, but not for the U.S. Senate.
They're point is a good one, but I think the aristrocracy point (while powerful rhetoric) doesn't actually get at the real issue.
It's not lineage. It's brand identification.
It's not just governors who get to appoint the occasional senator who go to the family names, but voters too. Look at Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Robert Kennedy, Sen. Ted Kennedy, President Franklin Roosevelt, President John Quincy Adams, etc., all ELECTED to office.
The reason voters go to familiar last names is the same reason they buy Johnson's Baby Shampoo even if they suspect the generic stuff does the same thing for less money.
They're comfortable with a brand they have used before.
Need canned green beans? Let's see we could go with Libby's. You never know what you'll get with the store brand. Remember that time we tried to Blagojevich brand?
Need a governor? Oh, look there's an Edmondson on the shelves. His father and uncle did OK.
The system is still a meritocracy, hence Barack Obama defeating the wife of a former president and the son of an admiral, but when given the choice, the consumer will always have a tendency to buy a known label.
