David Brooks, "Nice Guy" Neoconservative, praises the old WASP elite as he notes the lineage of both Howard Dean and George W. Bush. The article echoes the sentiments of Fareed Zakaria in The Future of Freedom. Ironically, both Brooks & Zakaria are exemplars of the new dispensation. Some of the other examples that Brooks brings up are weaker, Kerry for instance is Boston Brahmin on his mother’s side, but his paternal grandparents were Jews by origin (Kerry ~ Kohn + Catholic conversion)[1]. None of the other Democratic candidates besides Kerry or Dean seem to have a WASP establishment pedigree in the recent past-interesting that these two are the front-runners. Of course, George Bush Sr. was the first WASP establishment president since F.D.R., so I suspect that this is just a diversion for columnists trying to find patterns in coincidences and dazzle their readers.
fn1. Goldwater was of course the first candidate of Jewish origins to run for the presidency after nomination by a major party. His mother was Episcopalian and he was raised in that faith.
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