Hillary Clinton officially announced her candidacy for president in 2016 on Sunday, and with her announcement, the favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination has entered the field.
Many political junkies have already penciled in Mrs. Clinton as the Democratic nominee and have turned their attention to a more competitive Republican primary field. The early favorite for the right side of the aisle is Governor Jeb Bush, whose road to the candidacy is paved with familial connections. As the pieces fall into place, the American public is now looking at a race between a third Bush and a second Clinton to become president of the United States. Has our democracy silently eroded into an aristocratic oligarchy?
It’s still possible that a challenger will usurp the early Bush or Clinton favorites before their respective conventions, yet those challengers will have a tall order to fill. So, let’s say for the sake of argument that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, as many expect, and Bush pulls off the Republican nomination as well. What does that say about the state of party politics?
American democracy was built as a reaction to the British monarchy, a government system ruled by familial ties and old money. For hundreds of years our system has worked as it was intended and has kept the family connections in the presidency to a minimum. Will it finally fail in 2016?
While Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush are the early favorites, there are plenty of candidates in the field with all the political merits and none of the strings attached. It worries me to think about Bill Clinton getting another official spot in the White House as First Gentleman. The only thought that worries me more is the same panel of advisors that got our country into Iraq and Afghanistan coming back to advise yet another Bush.
In the primaries, it will be easy to vote for the recognizable names of Clinton and Bush, but as a public it is imperative that we strongly consider the other options. If the voters don’t take a serious look at the other candidates, the American public could ultimately secure the failure of the American democratic system of their own volition.
A Clinton vs. Bush election in 2016 would be representative of all the failures of party politics, and I very much hope that it will not come to that.