Letters to the Editor
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Imagine then...
if Hillary goes all the way. (!!)
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How many of them know that Hunt Oil, of Texas
, a cronie of Bushit ,cracked theier own oil production deal with the Kurds? Where's the reporting on this Tim? Burried under the bodies of our soldiers?
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Not trivial to me
It is one of the biggest reasons that I am not supporting Hillary Clinton. It is not good for this country to continue to going back and forth between two dynasties.
So I am supporting Bill Richardson.
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It's not trivial.....
it's sad. as much as i like clinton (especially since he's been able to do the things he SHOULD have done in office now that he's out of office) it's time for the democrats to stop cruising by on past victories and/or leaders. dynasties are for sports, not for the presidency.
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Dynasty? Baloney!
I've been looking for an opportunity to weigh in on this BS for awhile. Let's break it down:
Number of presidential elections (from 1980): 7
Number of presidential elections (from 1980) with a "Bush" on the ticket: 6
Number of presidential elections (from 1980) with a "Clinton" on the ticket: 2
Let's look at it another way:
Portion of presidential elections (from 1980) with a "Bush" on the ticket: 6/7 (86%)
Portion of presidential elections (from 1980) with a "Clinton" on the ticket: 2/7 (28%)
That's a three-to-one ratio. Even if Hillary gets nominated and wins both in '08 and '12 (and assuming Jeb doesn't get nominated in '12), it'll be 6 Bushes vs. 4 Clintons, still a 50% advantage for the Bush dynasty.
How about this way:
Number of presidential elections (from 1980) without a "Clinton" on the ticket: 5
Number of presidential elections (from 1980) without a "Bush" on the ticket: one
And not only were W. and GHWB presidents, but GHWB's dad, Prescott Bush, was a Senator from Connecticut in the 40s and 50s. Theirs is an old New England family. Both Clintons' fathers were regular guys, not wealthy, and not well-equipped to start a dynasty.
Calling this pseudo-phenomenon "Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton" implies that it's somehow even. It isn't. The Bush family is a real dynasty, and has been such for a century. I'm not concerned about a "Clinton dynasty". They have way fewer kids.
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Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
Without even peeking at any census data, I'd have to say there's no way in hell those numbers are anywhere close to right.
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This can't be right.
It's been 19 years of Clinton or Bush.
According to the US Census in in 2000 about 28% of the US population was 19 years old or younger (http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_age.html).
Now this article says it's 40% (Actually-- 38% if you go by the numbers in the story.)
I doubt that the age distribution of the country has jumped so dramatically in the last 7 years.
Something must be wrong here.
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40% of Americans are Under 19 Years Old?
40% born after 1988? ???
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slipped up?
I wonder if Tim meant to say the the President or Vice-President has been a Bush or a Clinton.
As written, it implies that 40% of the country is under 19. That can't be right. As modified by me, it means that 40% of the country is under 39. That sounds more like it.
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Trivial but interesting
How different is that from, say, a Vice-President running for President and trading on their name recognition from being vice-president?
And it's not like you know what you're getting just because the candidate has the same last name. George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush are very, very different people. For one, George Sr. had the good sense not to get entangled in Iraq. Junior decided to do the exact opposite.
As for the notion that we're "going back and forth between dynasties," I don't think you can make that argument unless Hillary Clinton actually wins. Then maybe you have a pattern that should perhaps be broken. Right now, there is no pattern. Just Georgie Jr. trading on his father's name. The problem with him isn't that he has the last name "Bush," it's that he's dangerously incompetent and unworthy of the office. Had Dubya been a great president, we likely wouldn't be having this conversation.
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Talk about Brand Loyalty!
Next back it up to 1980,
Add Reagan and what % do you get?
28 years and 3 names!
Extra Credit: Those born in CA had Ronnie for 16 years = first 8 as CA Gov + 8 as POTUS.
America. Go with what you know...
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I saw it on the internet...
...it must be true.
Maybe Salon ought to vet the accuracy of the Number of the Day before posting.
As numerous readers have pointed out - this one is complete BS.
What's not trivial is that the BS-ness of this number isn't immediately obvoius. Are we that bad at math? Ugh, yes.
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If you count the VP as "in the White House"
Then then numbers do seem to make sense.
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First: It doesn't matter which family has had the longer dynasty; the fact remains that two families have controlled the WH for 2 decades, with the horrifyingly realistic chance for another 4 to 8. It should be disturbing to any democratic patriot, no matter how you parse it.
Second: For those checking the math, I would suggest some leeway might be given to the qualifier 'always', with respect to the question of when people are meaningfully aware of who is President and what that means.
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*Ahem* Tim:
The original article is actually making the point many readers have already surmised:
Already, for 116 million Americans, there has never been a time when there wasn't a Bush or Clinton in the White House, either as president or vice president. [My emphasis.]
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It's "in the White House", not "as president"
If you click on the article, you actually get this line:
Already, for 116 million Americans, there has never been a time when there wasn't a Bush or Clinton in the White House, either as president or vice president.
So they're saying that 40% of Americans are under 27, not 19. The Salon bit is incorrect.
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Please update the post
Tim,
I hope you'll update your post. The figure reflects the percentage of Americans that have never lived without a Bush or Clinton in the White House as president OR vice-president. Quite different.
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actual numbers
According to this web page: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0110384.html
in 2005 those under 19 (born since '86) accounted for 27.5% of the population. It's probably about the same now.
The AP piece made a minor error in its lead, "Forty percent of Americans have never lived when there wasn't a Bush or a Clinton in the White House"
The VP isn't technically "in the White House"; he neither lives there nor makes his office there. The mid-article sentence did not make that error.