A Good Idea?

Michael Barone has an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal that touches on an issue that I've been concerned about myself.

I'm not exactly a supporter of Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency, even though I think she's a fine senator and would most likely be a good president.

But that's not, I would contend, the point. There's a more serious issue involved.

Consider the following: if Hillary Clinton runs and wins the 2008 election, and then is reelected in 2012, she will leave the White House on January 20, 2017. That would mean that from January 20, 1989 to January 20, 2017 -- a period of 28 years -- the White House would have been occupied by either a Bush or a Clinton.

Surely the White House is not a baton to be passed back and forth between the members of two families? At least I don't think that's what the founding fathers had in mind.

Barone makes a further point:

But keep the following in the back of your mind. George P. Bush will be eligible to run for president in 2012. Chelsea Clinton will be eligible to run for president in 2016. So will Jenna and Barbara Bush, who will turn 35 several days after the election. And Jeb Bush, who had a fine record in eight years as governor of Florida, will be younger in 2024 than John McCain will be in 2008 or Ronald Reagan was in 1984.

Frightening, isn't it?

But there is, I believe, a way out.

In the early 1950s the Republicans who controlled Congress were terrified at the idea that someday there might be another Franklin Delano Roosevelt, so they pushed through a constitutional amendment stipulating that from that point on no president could serve more than two terms (although for the purposes of getting it passed they made an exception for Harry Truman, who in theory could have run in 1952 had it not been for the fact that Truman's poll ratings were even lower than George W. Bush's are now, if you can believe that). That constitutional amendment is still in effect to this day.

I think it might need updating.

Perhaps we should have a constitutional amendment that states that from now on no member of either the Bush or Clinton families should be allowed to run for president. It would be difficult to enforce (what exactly do you mean by family, anyway -- do third cousins twice-removed count?), but I think it's worth considering. Because I don't think it's healthy for a democracy (or at least what purports to be such) for the White House to be passed back and forth between two families like a volleyball.

And while I'd be curious to see what a Chelsea Clinton administration might look like, it keeps Jenna or Barbara from getting in the White House, so I think the trade-off might be worth it.

Tom Moran