{"id":464,"date":"2008-12-21T21:51:33","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T01:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=464"},"modified":"2008-12-21T22:39:31","modified_gmt":"2008-12-22T02:39:31","slug":"the-next-senator-from-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/the-next-senator-from-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Senator From New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not a New Yorker. \u00c2\u00a0This post is about sticking my nose in someone else&#8217;s business. \u00c2\u00a0That said, this is just an opinion, and Governor Paterson is free to disregard it; he doesn&#8217;t even have to worry about me voting against him.<\/p>\n<p>My mother asked me last week about what I thought of Caroline Kennedy as Senator. \u00c2\u00a0I went on a rant, and we moved on to another topic. \u00c2\u00a0The discussion wasn&#8217;t over. \u00c2\u00a0She sent an email today: &#8220;17% of elected federal officeholders have relatives who are also elected officials. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Doctors beget a high proportion of doctors. \u00c2\u00a0Lawyers beget a high proportion of lawyers. \u00c2\u00a0Plumbers. . . Teachers. . . You are an elected official who has a multigenerational history of elected officials.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It was an interesting argument, but it didn&#8217;t persuade me. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The problem with that statistic is that it doesn&#8217;t talk about cause and effect.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If your family has a large number of doctors, should you start  diagnosing people without medical school?\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>If your family has a large number of lawyers, should you be admitted to  the bar without going to law school?\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m an elected official, and I readily admit I am one because of my  family history.\u00c2\u00a0 But was I awarded my position because of my family  history?\u00c2\u00a0 Absolutely not.\u00c2\u00a0 I went out, met voters, and convinced them to  vote for me. \u00c2\u00a0Families guide careers, but they don&#8217;t qualify you for that career.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For the sake of argument I&#8217;m willing to grant that Caroline Kennedy is a  nice person who has lead a life worthy of admiration and respect.\u00c2\u00a0 But  she is not being considered for the Senate seat because of her life.  She&#8217;s being considered because of her family.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s title by family.  It&#8217;s royalty. If you took her resume and changed the name to &#8220;Caroline Dunn,&#8221; would she be considered the front runner?<\/p>\n<p>If Paterson really wants the best person for the job, he should  find some academic, or a non-profit exec, or a political chief-of-staff,  someone with a track record of a clear head, good organizer, nice  person, and a rock-solid sense of right and wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Love you, mom, but we need smart, hard-working, ethical people in the Senate. \u00c2\u00a0We need more than a popular surname.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not a New Yorker. \u00c2\u00a0This post is about sticking my nose in someone else&#8217;s business. \u00c2\u00a0That said, this is just an opinion, and Governor Paterson is free to disregard it; he doesn&#8217;t even have to worry about me voting against him. My mother asked me last week about what I thought of Caroline Kennedy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}