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Wednesday, December 3, 2008 12:00 AM

Nepotistic succession in the political class

A large, and rapidly growing, percentage of high elected officials are part of politically powerful families. What accounts for this anti-democratic dynamic?
Glenn Greenwald

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  • Wednesday, December 3, 2008 10:22 AM

    Simple cavil

    In a town hall forum, someone complained to Barack Obama about one of his positions. He responded by saying something like, "It's a democracy, you can run for public office and put your ideas into action."

    While it's true that the nepotism described by GG in this post is bad, outsiders could run for office at a higher rate, and win, by campaigning against the insiders. I believe Howard Dean encouraged outsiders to run as DNC chairman, which probably differed from Clintonista Terry McAuliffe.

    —schencka Read schencka's other letters

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