What is in a name?

Over on Political Betting Morus has a fascinating post about the importance of dynasty in American politics:

I decided to do some research on the US Senate, and found that the proportion of members who in my view owed their seats in some way to direct descent from high political office-holders was higher than the proportion of hereditary peers in the House of Lords.

At the heart of this post is the idea that if Caroline Kennedy is selected to succeed Hilary Clinton as the junior Senator for New York then she will be ideally placed to become the first female US President in eight or twelve years time.