"But in this case I honestly believe... she's the best suited, best qualified non-incumbent I've had a chance to vote for president for this moment in time," said Clinton. Hillary is what this country needs after the Bush years..........interesting article below...........enjoy.........andy
WASHINGTON -- The prospect of nearly 30 years of uninterrupted White House rule by a Bush or Clinton is triggering debate about dynastic power in the cash-hungry world of US politics.
A victory for Hillary Clinton in next year's presidential election would mark not only the election of America's first woman commander-in-chief but take government by a well-placed few to new extremes.
It would mean that more than 100 million Americans, or one-third of the current population, would never have known a White House without a Bush or Clinton in office, starting with president George Bush in 1989.
Continuing through Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and then to the former First Lady, the Oval Office would be occupied by one or other family for 24 years. Make that 28, if Hillary were to win a second term.
For a country that was born by throwing off the yoke of royal British subjugation, that prospect does not sit well with everyone.
But for Linda Fowler, a political sciences professor at Dartmouth College, it reflects the pull of celebrity in the increasingly costly US political machine.
"I think the pattern in recent years is connected to the high cost of campaigns, the need for name recognition in the early polls in order to raise money," she said.
"It is a vicious circle: donors won't contribute unless they think you can win, and one of the ways of establishing credibility is to demonstrate that voters know who you are and are supporting you," she said.
Clinton is well ahead of the Democratic White House field in national polls, and would beat Republican frontrunner Rudolph Giuliani in a head-to-head battle next year, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Clinton and Giuliani had been expected to clash in 2000 for a New York Senate seat, but the Republican former mayor withdrew after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and she went on to win.
"Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar [College]," New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote.
"But then, without nepotism, W. would be pumping gas in Midland (Texas) -- and not out of the ground."
A good pedigree has always had a place in US politics. John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams were both president in the early years of the republic. The 20th century saw two Roosevelts [distant cousins] in the White House, while the Kennedy clan has been a Washington fixture for generations.
Clinton's rivals for the Democratic nomination have not overlooked the dynastic dimension of this race in a country proud of its meritocratic traditions.
Senator Joseph Biden has spoken of "this Clinton-Bush thing" as being a drag on progress, while Senator Barack Obama wants "to turn the page on the broken politics" of Washington.
Clinton herself insists that she is not running on the coattails of her husband, whose two terms of robust economic growth are now bathed in a nostalgic glow for many voters compared to the troubled war years of Bush.
Asked at one debate in July whether it was a good or bad thing to have a Clinton or Bush in the White House for so long, the New York senator said to laughter: "I think it is a problem that Bush was elected in 2000.
"I am very proud of my husband's record as president of the United States," she added to more applause. "Any one of us would be a better president than our current president."
In a recent NBC interview, Bill Clinton said: “I don't like it whenever anybody gets something they're not entitled to just because of their families.”
"But in this case I honestly believe... she's the best suited, best qualified non-incumbent I've had a chance to vote for president for this moment in time," said Clinton.
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