The "Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton" Trance

Time for a little "political post" here on the blog. I'm reading Carl Bernstein's biography of Hillary Clinton A Woman in Charge. Very interesting. And I've noted that Mrs. Clinton is way ahead in the polls. So I was fascinated by this opinion piece by Peggy Noonan that my friend Jon Ward sent me. In it she bemoans what she calls the "Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton Trance" in which our country seems to be locked.

Now I don't know if you can really trust the articles that partisan players like Noonan write. Do they just put stuff like this out there to try and mess with the other side? Are they just bored? But it's interesting nonetheless. Here's a quote:

That to me gets to the heart of the problem and the heart of The Trance. Mrs. Clinton is so far ahead so early on for the same reason Mr. Bush was so far ahead so early on in 2000, and after only six years as governor, with no previous offices behind him. It is the nature of modern politics. A political family gains allies--retainers, supporters, hangers-on, admirers, associates, in-house Machiavellis. The bigger the government, the more ways allies can be awarded, which binds them more closely. Your destiny is theirs. Members of the court recruit others. Money lines spread person to person, company to company, board to board, mover to mover.

The most important part is the money lines. Power is expensive. The second most important part is the word "winner." The Bushes are winners; the Clintons are winners. We know this, they've won. The Bushes are wired into the Republican money-line system; the Clintons are wired into the Democratic money-line system. For a generation, two generations now, they have had the same dynamics in play, only their friends are on the blue team, not the red, or the red, not the blue.

They are, both groups, up and ready and good to go every election cycle. They are machines. There are good people on each side, idealists, the hopeful, those convinced the triumph of their views will make our country better. And there are those on each side who are not so wonderful, not so well-meaning, not well-meaning at all. And some are idiots, but very comfortable ones.

Is this good for our democracy, this air of inevitability? Is it good in terms of how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves? Or is it something we want to break out of, like a trance?

I agree that the "air of inevitability" she describes isn't necessarily good. I wonder if Noonan would point it out as quickly if we were in 2012 and Jeb Bush were ahead in the polls? I hope she would. I like reading Noonan. Her book, What I Saw at the Revolution, about her time in the Reagan administration got me interested politics when I was in highschool. And she seems more even-handed than some writers.

But really, how long is "Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton" thing going to go on? Will we see Chelsea vs. Jenna somewhere down the line?