Americans' distaste for political dynasties is overblown. The Fix has argued this before -- repeatedly , in fact. The idea that persuadable people really aren't going to vote for a Clinton again or a Bush again because of their familial connections just isn't really borne out by any polling.
And in fact, a new poll suggests the opposite -- that it helps.
Qualtrics and the Stanford Labratory for Social Research ran an online poll that looked at how showing pictures of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush affected views of Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, respectively. And, surprise! With the people who actually might vote for Hillary and Jeb, it improved views of both candidates.
The survey showed people two sets of photos -- one with the 2016 candidates pictured alone, the other alongside their supposed ankle-weight former-president family members.
In both cases, both independents and the party of the candidate in question actually had a more positive view of the candidate after being shown the picture with their family members.
Pictured alone, 71 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents had a positive view of Hillary Clinton. Pictured with Bill, it was 80 percent and 34 percent, respectively.
When Jeb Bush was pictured alone, 27 percent of Republicans and 16 percent of independents had a positive view of him. When pictured with Dubya, GOP favorable views of him nearly doubled to 50 percent (!), while independents ticked up to 20 percent.
(A caveat: the Post doesn't generally like online polls, but we think it's interesting insofar as it shows the differing views. So while the favorable ratings overall might or might not be great data, the differences between the combination and solo photos are instructive.)
In both cases, the combination photos led to a dimmer view among people in the opposite political party. But these voters, we would stress, almost definitely weren't going to vote for Clinton and Bush anyway.
So can we stop talking about how Americans hate dynasties now?
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