Jenna Bush debuts on the Today Show

Heeeeres Jenna!

Jenna Bush will debut this Friday, September 18, 2009 as a correspondent on the NBC Today Show.  It will not be the first time a presidential kid crossed over to the Fourth Estate.  Call it “Stockholm syndrome” if you will, but these kids who suffer for years at the hands of the media and watch their fathers suffer even more, quite frequently find security by joining the ranks of their tormentors.

Most recently Ron Reagan, Jr. co-hosted the talk show Connected: Coast to Coast with Monica Crowley at MSNBC.   That ran from February to December, 2005 and followed a brief stint by Mr. Reagan as a late night host on a syndicated show.  Both Ron and brother, Michael Reagan, still have their radio shows but hailing from the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Nor did this start with television.  In 1945, Anna Roosevelt, daughter of FDR, was a super powerful White House aide to her ailing father.  When the president died Anna joined her mother, the former First Lady, as co-host of an ABC national radio program.  For years Anna attempted to launch her own newspaper from Arizona.

Anna’s brother, Elliott Roosevelt, teamed up with William Randolph Hearst, the media magnate and his father’s most bitter enemy.  And this while the president was still in office.  Elliott became director of a Hearst owned syndicate of radio stations in Texas that routinely pilloried the president.

The kids of presidents do very well as educators.  Lyon Tyler was president of William and Mary. Harry Garfield was president of Williams College.  Helen Taft Manning ran Bryn Mawr College. Today, David Eisenhower, grandson of a president, has a successful academic career at the University of Pennsylvania.

And children of presidents have written hundreds of books, award winning books.  John Eisenhower is one of this nation’s greatest military historians.  Two of the country’s most beloved and prolific mystery writers, Margaret Truman and Elliot Roosevelt, were children of presidents.  There have been a slew of great warriors, including generals and two Medal of Honor winners. Most of all, they often succeed in their family business, politics, where they have a head-start in name recognition and sometimes fund-raising potential.  But, alas, try as they may, there have not been many successful media figures, either as business persons or correspondents.

Ron Reagan’s syndicated talks show folded under pressure from competition.  Anna Roosevelt’s ABC network program fizzled after a year.  And she and her husband were never able to get their newspaper off the ground. Michael Reagan, finding his own place in talk radio has been one of the more successful.  So when Jenna Bush takes to the air waves this Friday, we will all cheer her on and wish her the best but expectations will be quite low and that will likely bring a smile to her father’s face.  The Bush family has always done well when the expectations were low.

A Chelsea Clinton Wedding?

Can a child of the White House be married in peace?

The fox and the hounds are at it again.

Rumors are flying that Chelsea Clinton will be marrying her beau, Marc Mezvinsky, the last week of August on Martha’s Vineyard.  The Clintons deny any such plans.  But the National Enquirer insists that all the signs are there—including President Barack Obama’s scheduled vacation, also on Martha’s Vineyard.

If the rumors are true, Chelsea and Marc are doing their best to have a private wedding—in the fine tradition of many other White House brides throughout history—with media hounds pursuing in full cry.

When future ambassador Frank Sayre was courting Jessie Woodrow Wilson, they would “escape the eagle eyes of reporters,” by meeting at a canal’s bank and paddling away in a canoe.  Reporters clustered around the White House for Jessie and Frank’s wedding, awaiting the new married couple’s exit, but the newlyweds sneaked out the south entrance and escaped. 

Six months later, sister Eleanor married Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo, and the press was determined not to be fooled.  But Mac, as he was called, parked four cars in various places around the White House with the shades drawn.  At the appropriate moment, Jessie and Frank jumped into one car, with three other conspiratorial couples diving into the others.  In a whirl, all four cars sped away, “pursued,” Eleanor said, “by wild-eyed reporters.”  When all was quiet at last, Mac and Eleanor calmly got into the “real” car and motored serenely away.

But can a child of the White House be married in peace if they get married after their father has left office?  For example, Ms. Clinton?

Margaret Truman said, in 1956, “I feel that marriage vows are sacred, and I hope that mine will be spared the hurly-burly attending a news event.”  She and her husband, Clifton Daniel, managed it, allowing only ten invited reporters into the church in Independence, Missouri. 

Julie Nixon was married just before her parents moved into the house on Pennsylvania Avenue, insisting on a private ceremony closed to the press, and officiated by her favorite minister, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. 

In a secret ceremony that defied all odds, John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his bride, Carolyn Bissette, pulled an impossible coup on the media and wed on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia, in a church that didn’t even have electric lights.   

But these are exceptions to the rule.  Ten-year-old Fanny Hayes was the same age as Malia when she entered the White House, but her wedding, which came long after the family had moved out of Washington—even after her father had died—still commanded stellar attention.  The sitting President and his Cabinet took trains to Ohio to be present as Fanny Hayes, daughter of Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19^th president, was wed.

And the wedding of Esther Cleveland to minor English gentry at Westminster Abbey in London was a huge international event, even though her father, President Grover Cleveland, had long ago passed from the public stage. 

So the wedding of Chelsea Clinton, whenever it comes, will be a biggy.  The nation still sees her walking across the White House lawn, flanked by her mother and father, quietly taking each of their hands in her own, a teenager, holding things together.  And the nation loves her for it.  When the daughter of any former President and sitting Secretary of State gets married it is a big deal around the world. But a wedding for Chelsea?  It will be a moment for history.

Chelsea Clinton Coming out. CBS interviews Doug Wead.

And Chelsea Clinton for president? Wead on Fox.

The Obama’s: A functional family on the move

Some journalists are making a big deal out of how the Obamas are traveling to foreign ports together as a family unit. After the dysfunctional Clintons, Reagans and Roosevelts and even the Bushes, with their arcane rules of one at a time in the limelight, which meant a former president could not even be told his son was invading Iraq, it is a bit of a shock to see a working family, happy together, with dad doing his thing. In that sense, the journalists are right. This is something new.

On the other hand it is very irritating to read stories claiming that children of presidents have never traveled abroad during their father’s presidencies Anna Roosevelt was a major planner of Yalta and was there on board the Quincy, as were children of Winston Churchill. Notably, First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt was not allowed to come. Eighteen children of presidents actually served on their father’s staff at the White House and had full time jobs, some as the personal secretaries to the president.

As to children of the president traveling abroad? It is very common, one of the perks of power, and the further away from the White House the more they thrive. A trip to Europe has been almost a rite of passage for children of presidents in modern times and in earlier years, when it required a rather lengthy sea journey, it was the place where many lived both before and after the White House.

The Bush twins visited Europe during their father’s presidency, as did children of the Carters and Fords and Nixons and Eisenhowers. I actually traveled with Neil Bush to Europe during his father’s presidency. And he was all over Asia. The Kennedy kids visited Europe with their mother during JFK’s presidency.

FDR had sons in Europe during his presidency, of course in the war, but even before as tourists and businessmen. Joe Kennedy dragged Jimmy Roosevelt around with him when he sought contracts with liquor companies, anticipating the end of prohibition. And Johnny Roosevelt was in the headlines for accidentally insulting the mayor of Cannes, France.

With great fanfare, Theodore Roosevelt sent his daughter, Alice, on a foreign cruise to China and the Philippines. It captured headlines and diverted attention from his secret efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War. So this was a formal, secret use of his daughter in American foreign policy. Having Malia and Sasha along on these trips is not new.

Likewise, President Ulysses S. Grant sent his daughter on a European cruise to get her out of town. He was determined to keep the attractive Nellie from marrying someone on his staff. Like Alice Roosevelt, Nellie Grant had an on board romance and ended up marrying the man she met on the high seas.

When the Grant presidency ended the whole family took a trip around the world. The youngest, Jesse, was so impressed by the experience that he made world travel a fulltime career. Heads of state were told that the visiting young Jesse Grant was a likely future American president himself and so he milked it for all it was worth, wine, women and song.

Webb Hayes, son of Rutherford B. Hayes, was a multimillionaire, founder of what became the Union Carbide Corporation and a soldier of fortune in wars in China (the Boxer Rebellion), South Africa and the Crimea. When his father was president he was his personal secretary and bodyguard.

The Lincolns had planned a trip to Europe but America was in the middle of a terrible Civil War. Their dream trip never happened. The president was assassinated. But the First Lady made the trip years later and took their young son, Tad Lincoln, with her.

Some presidential children were raised in Europe, like Liza Monroe, who ran the White House for her father and a couple of John Adams’ sons and one of Jefferson’s daughters. George Washington Adams was born in Europe. His father and grandfather were both presidents.

When George W. Bush ran for president journalists wrote stories claiming that his foreign travel was limited to a quick visit to Israel with two other governors and a one week jaunt to China when his father was the American representative to the People’s Republic. In fact he had traveled many times to South America and Europe. His sister, Doro Bush, daughter of George H. W. Bush, was baptized in Communist China.

So Europe and foreign travel is no stranger to children of presidents. Just to the know-it-all journalists who don’t pay attention. Malia and Sasha are actually following a very predictable path. Perhaps the reason people are seeing this as new is because the Obamas are new. There were no headlines when Jenna Bush shopped the Champs Elysee but Malia and Sasha would attract a crowd of thousands.

What should we expect next? A guest appearance on a popular sitcom. Another common rite of passage for the children of presidents. And again, journalists will assure us that this too is new. “Unprecedented,” they will say, Malia and Sasha on a television show. Don’t you believe it.

What is new is that we have a functional family in the White House, a marriage that works and children who are not abused or neglected. Regardless of one’s politics, that is a bit of a new thing for Americans and that makes them fun to watch.

Malia Obama, born on the third of July

Malia Obama had a birthday yesterday.

White House kids seem to have it all. Every toy and gadget comes over the transom. The most famous people of their day are on hand. But the one thing that is often missing are the parents.

When Tad Lincoln celebrated his 12th birthday on April 4, 1865, his father Abraham Lincoln was visiting Richmond, Virginia, the conquered capital of the Confederacy. Fascinated newsmen covered Lincoln as he sat down at the very desk of his former nemesis, Jefferson Davis, in the so called Southern White House. It was a moment filled with such human interest and irony that the birthday of Tad mattered little to the nation. Ten days later, on April 14, Abraham Lincoln was dead at the hands of an assassin. Tad didn’t have his dad for long.

John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Mrs. Kennedy remained in the White House for weeks after but the West Wing was immediately taken by Lyndon Johnson, the new president. On November 27, only five days after the death of her father, young Caroline Kennedy celebrated her birthday. The nation hardly cared. The new president Lyndon Johnson gave an address to a joint session of congress. And Mrs. Kennedy was in the news for visiting with the new president in the Oval Office. Big events overshadowed a little girl’s sixth birthday. But Caroline surely remembers it.

Doug Dwight “Ikky” Eisenhower was born on September 24, 1917 but died three years later in his father’s arms. Rather than wallow in grief, the Eisenhower’s determined to forever celebrate the birth of this child and the time they had shared together. They ever after celebrated his birthday, sending little cards and gifts to each other. But in 1955 President Eisenhower suffered his first heart attack on that date. The newspapers never even mentioned the coincidence. And Mamie would have her first serious stroke years later on the eve of this September 24 anniversary. No one even remembered the birthday of Ikky. But the Eisenhowers obviously did.

History towers above these little children of the White House and the lives of their parents often bury them in insignificance. If the children seem for awhile to be spoiled by the drippings from the table of power they are all too often overlooked and deprived of the ordinary parental love that many of the rest of us take for granted.

And so, there is something touching about seeing Michelle Obama, a first lady who is showing herself to be something much more, a real life mother, often putting her children first. On the trip to Europe, when daughter Sasha turned eight, she didn’t just pack her and her sister off to the movie set for the latest Harry Potter installment. They would have been okay, surrounded by handlers and feted by actors and actresses. The First Lady could have met with other movers and shakers in London, or burnished her image and cause by meeting with volunteers, doing her own Princess Diana photo op. The world would have loved it. But instead, she went with Sasha and Malia to meet Mr. Harry Potter together. They were inseparable throughout the trip, mother and daughters.

We have seen a number of dysfunctional families and marriages in the White House. The Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Reagans, the Clintons. And if the Bushes were not dysfunctional, they were certainly old school, children were to be seen and not heard and when it wasn’t your turn, you weren’t even to be seen. So there is something kind of nice about watching a mother and father who openly love their daughters and dote on them.

Power does strange things to families, especially the children. Catherine de Medici plotted against her own sons. Two Russian monarchs, Ivan the terrible and Peter the Great, executed their own sons. It’s Biblical, David and Absalom. Power is an intoxicating poison and it ruins families and turns brother against brother.

However divided we may now be about the changing role of government and this administration’s decisions on the economy and foreign policy, we can all celebrate the fact that little Malia Obama will be eleven years old tomorrow. And we can all celebrate the fact that her parents see that as important.

Best new website? 1weddingsource.com

Mary Jane Ontiveroz: She made the cake for Jenna Bush

There is a knockout new website for wedding planning called 1weddingsource.com.  They have everything you need, a one stop marketplace of ideas, resources and wedding favors.  And this weekend they are revisiting the Jenna Bush wedding, which took place exactly one year ago, May 10.

One of the features is a story I have researched and written about Mary Jane Ontiveroz, owner of Ultimate Wedding Cake a popular San Antonio Wedding Cake company who made the Jenna Bush wedding cake.  Mary Jane just may be the most talented cake maker in the United States.  People drool over her creations.  In fact, Jenna was at another wedding when she tasted one of Mary Jane’s masterpieces and was instantly sold.  She had to have the cake maker for herself.

The story of the rise of this remarkable lady, which begins in her teens in Denver, is an American success story, with all the ups and downs and tears and triumphs that go with the territory.  You will love the story but I warn you, it will be interrupted by visits to the refrigerator.  This woman not only knows how to bake something delicious, she knows how to describe it too.

So visit this hot new site… 1weddingsource.com and get an inside look at the planning of the biggest American social event of the last decade.

Meanwhile, here is a wonderful YouTube journey of that wedding last year.  It was only the twenty third wedding of a presidential child to take place while the father was in office.  A great moment for the history books.  By the way, you can read more about the history of these events at White Houses Weddings, including how a murder marred the first such event.

A video summary of the Jenna Bush wedding, one year after.

CBS NEWS: Why Jenna Bush chose Crawford

Today Show – Two Bush presidents in tears

Fox News Channel – Was Jenna Bush the most beautiful WH bride?

Ambassador Caroline Kennedy?

okay, here is my take on Caroline Kennedy.  (Be patient, after flying back to New York to do CBS for the inauguration, I am back in Russia on my speaking tour.  This time in Yekaterinburg, so no access to my books to facts check. Will be home Monday.)

First, I don’t think she is finished.  There may indeed be some personal, financial disqualifier, that is the speculation, but it is also possible that she has simply withdrawn from consideration for the Senate seat.  And wisely so.  This delicate dance reminds me of Robert Todd Lincoln. another child of a beloved president who was assassinated.  He made a similar on again, off again entrance to public life.  It was always assumed that he could be president if he ever got into politics… sort of like JFK, Jr.  For years, young Mr. Lincoln was a looming presence on the political scene but he was wise enough not to try it.  He would test the waters and back off when greeted by the kind of reaction that Caroline Kennedy just got.  If you look up one of my old blogs you will read how no less than Joseph Pulitzer, himself, railed against the idea of Lincoln getting elected to something on the basis of his father’s record.

Having said that, Lincoln finally found his place and I think CK will too.

The country likes its politicians to be humbled.  Most lose early elections before they are finally voted in, the public feeling that they have had the pride knocked out of them enough to be trusted.  Bush one and two both lost their first elections.  Abe Lincoln was a frequent loser and there are many others.  In 1988 Bill Clinton was practically booed off the floor of the DNC and delegates went to sleep as he spoke, but four years later they nominated him for president.

In my interviews with presidential children, they were unanimous in rejecting public life.  All of them had tasted it.  All of them knew that they could have it again.  Television and print media were always calling.  They could use the opportunities for good, for causes which they believe to be helpful.  But all of them rejected public life as too  painful and intrusive.  So my take is this; Caroline Kennedy “got in,” when she endorsed Barack Obama.  That was her coming out party.  And she did not make her decision casually.  She made it with great calcualtion and consideration.  The Obama endorsement was far riskier and more likely to provoke a firestorm than a bid for the vacant Senate seat.  So I think that she is in this for the long haul.  And you can say that this Senate try was her defeat, that is, others have now bested her in the polls and she has gracefully backed out of it, and the public feels that they have had their blood.  So why should she quit now?  What a waste?  Having been baptized by fire, she is now more likely to be accepted.

I mentioned Robert Todd Lincoln, well he served as Secretary of War and aquitted himself quite well but his best performance of all was as Ambassador to the Court of St. James.  And THAT is where I think Caroline Kennedy should go.

It is the one post where all her negatives become positive.  The British understand royalty and love it. She would join a long list of presidential children who have served in that post.  The British public would follow her every move and accept her.  Afterall, her grandfather was the Ambassador.  She would have the class and dignity for the position and could easily raise the money to do the job right.  Yes, she would have to “eh, uh, you know,” make speeches.  But she would have speechwriters.  She is so gracious and lovely.  In the past she never traded on her name except for philanthropy.  In some ways she is an American institution.  Who else could represent us better?  She could very well be another Lady Diana.  The French, of course, remembering her mother, would love her too.

So my take is this… President Barack Obama needs to do something for her.  Doing nothing would be a pretty arrogant response to the political risks she took for him.  And of course, he will do something.  And the Court of St. James or Ambassador to France is the best fit.  We have been down this road before.  There is a reason why so many presidents’ kids have had these positions.  It is a good fit.  The Brits and the French both like pedigree.  Both president John Adams and his son, John Quincy had this post.  And one of John Quincy’s grandsons served there as well. (Or was it his son?)

There is one more thing.  Like so many others in the same position.  Caroline was not the “annointed” child.  That would be JFK, Jr.  Shortly before her death, Jackie wrote him a letter saying, “You especially have a place in history.”  Sounds like Augustine Washington, whose hopes were on firstborn, Lawrence, and who ignored young George, who didn’t even get an education.  It is the story of old man Eisenhower, who was counting on the young family star, Milton.  Or Joe Kennedy looking to Joe, Jr. Or mom and pop Bush looking to son Jeb. Caroline is the unexpected sibling who again and again throughout history, steps from the shadows to surprise the ambitous parent who is focused on another.

BTW, this is a Biblical parable.  Samuel the prophet meets all of Jesse’s sons, thinking that he will annoint one as a new King.  Finally in exasperation and confusion he says, “Is this all?”

Jesse says, “Yep, that’s it.” (Pause.) Oh! Yeah, well, there is David, the young un.  But he’s out with the sheep.”

“Go get him,” Samuel says.

So there is something terrible and wonderful going on here and it is nothing new.  Too many of OUr “annointed” sons die young… Lawrenece Washington died soon after his father.  JOe Kennedy was gone too quickly.  JFK, Jr. was gone shortly after his mother, who had written to him that “you, too, have a place in history.”
After the 1988 election, I asked Marvin Bush if any of his generation had an interest in politics. “Well,” he said, “We think that Jeb is going to do something.”

“What about George?” I asked.

“George?” he said.  “George is the family clown.”

When that reporter recently asked Caroline Kennedy what her brother would think of her bid to be a Senator, she said, “He would laugh his head off.”  Sounds familiar.

My take?  This story is not over.

Caroline Kennedy? What would Joseph Pulitzer say?

Caroline Kennedy, appointed to U. S. Senate?

When rumors spread that Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the assassinated president, Abraham Lincoln, was considering a political career on his own the ever vigilant American print media went ballistic.  No less than Joseph Pulitzer, himself, led an avalanche of stinging editorials warning that the emergence of Lincoln represented a dangerous threat to democracy and that any attempt at a political career would be fiercely opposed.

“True democracy makes no claims of birth or name,” wrote Pulitzer’s paper. “The merits of the man not the accident of his ancestry should be the passport to positions of public trust under a republican government.”  And as the specter of another Lincoln in public life grew more likely, the editorials grew more vicious.  “Rotten Republicanism has learned to reverse things that savor of monarchy and aristocracy,” the paper wrote, “It would transmit the Presidency as their fathers’ successors to crowns.” (New York World, May 10, 1884.)

Today, the same writers who opposed the nomination of Hillary Clinton on the grounds that she was trading on her name and bemoaned the damage to the country of the Bush dynasty are now silent on the imminent appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the U.S. Senate.

Media types who were outraged by the inexperience of Sarah Palin are now dewy eyed over the prospect of another Kennedy in power. 

But Sarah Palin had much more experience than Caroline Kennedy.  In a rather partisan and misleading segment shown at the top of an Evening News program, the network anchor interviewed their paid historian, asking if Palin were qualified.  “Actually,” Michael Bechloss intoned with a straight face, “Palin would be the first vice president who has not met with a foreign head of state since Pearl Harbor.”

A more relevant and more fair historic analysis would have pointed out that, love her or hate her, Sarah Palin’s service as a small town mayor and two years as governor, with an 80 % approval rating by her citizens, need not have been terribly troubling to the electorate.  Considering that Theodore Roosevelt was a governor for only two years before taking on the vice presidency and then later moving into the White House.  And Woodrow Wilson was a governor for two years before becoming president.  Roosevelt and Wilson are almost always ranked among the five greatest presidents in American history.

But Caroline Kennedy?  Appointed to the U.S. Senate?

There will be no Saturday Night Live skits calling a fat girl fat, or in this case, having a goofy Kennedy impersonator mumbling “and eh, you know?” ala Mrs. Kennedy in her soft ball interview with a local, handpicked, media person.  Rather expect SNL to offer backhanded compliments.  Nor will there be a condescending, I’m-the-principal-and-you-are-the-student interrogation from a news anchor.  Or a gotcha interview with a top journalist.

 This is a real, live, royal, coronation, folks.  And, those “watchdogs of American democracy,” will be lining the road with flowers and winks.

Actually, Mrs. Kennedy’s interview with the handpicked, local media person, with the pre-approved questions, was rather revealing.  She managed to survive the frightening question, “What would your mother think?”  But she blew the next one, “What would your brother think?”

Said Mrs. Kennedy, “He would laugh his head off.”

Really?  Why?  Is she so unqualified that he wouldn’t be able to picture it?

But Mrs. Kennedy had regained her political savvy and offered an explanation, “Because that’s the way our relationship was.”  We were not allowed to probe further.

Caroline Kennedy is my favorite Kennedy.  She has done well as a child of a president.  Her stature has transcended her White House experience.  No easy feat.  She is almost a social and philanthropic institution. 

And it is true, that a perfect storm is upon us, that Republicans dare not complain, they have had their own dynasty.  And who in the GOP wants the Bush family as enemies?  And the Democrats have their Clintons.  So we have this rare moment, when no partisan checks or balances are in play, and we have a historical version of “dynasties gone wild.” 

But none of that excuses this irresponsible abdication of duty by the national media.  The contrast with their partisan mugging of Sarah Palin is breathtaking in its hypocrisy.

For everything on children of presidents see…

http://www.upstairsatthewhitehouse.com/

Caroline Kennedy in the Senate? An historic perspective

 

I am getting a ton of calls from journalists wanting some historical context for Caroline Kennedy’s likely appointment to the U. S. Senate.   Even one of the presidential historian – talking heads has checked in, asking for example, if there have been other children of presidents who have served in the Senate.  “Just Adams and Taft, right?” one famous historian wanted to know.  Gotta make sure before going onto TV to tell the world.

Yep, just Adams and Taft.  Caroline Kennedy would make three.  Although there have been eight who served in the House of Representatives, four in the cabinet, five ambassadors and two governors, both Bushes.

Of course, Kennedy is not in yet.  Presumably she would be appointed to finish the term of Hillary Clinton, whom President Elect Obama is going to make his Secretary of State.  A lot of history there.  Clinton will be the first former first lady to serve in the cabinet, although Eleanor Roosevelt was Ambassador to the United Nations and Edith Galt Wilson practically ran the whole country for her incapacitated husband.

 

U. S. Senators who were children of presidents

1.) John Quincy Adams was the first son born to an American president.  Born in 1767 to John and Abigail Adams, he was a bit of a child prodigy, who accompanied his father on foreign trips and was serving at the ambassadorial level for the new United Sates in his twenties. He served as a U. S. Senator from Massachusetts from 1803 – 1808.  He would later be an ambassador again, secretary of state, and president before returning to the House of Representatives in his later years.

2.) Robert Taft, son of the 27^th president, William Howard Taft, served as a Senator from Ohio from 1939 – 1953.  He ran for president three times, and for awhile, was considered a front runner in the 1952 election.  Although a Republican, Taft was named one of the five greatest senators of all time by a committee chaired by Caroline Kennedy’s own father, then Senator John F. Kennedy.

Referred to as “Mr. Republican,” Bob Taft was the father of the modern conservative movement.

If Caroline Kennedy becomes the third presidents’ kid to serve in the U. S. Senate, there were three others who tried and failed, two of them ran for the elusive California seat.

 

The other candidates for the U. S. Senate who were children of presidents

1.) U. S. “Buck” Grant, Jr. was at the heart of a major scandal, talking his father, the former president, into joining the ill fated Grant and Ward brokerage firm.  Some concluded that the only thing that saved the young Grant from prison was the conclusion that he was more incompetent than culpable.  Years later, when he tried for a comeback by entering into the race for the U. S. Senate from California, the old charges resurfaced along with new ones, including bribery.  The new charges were eventually proven to be false, the product of “dirty politics.”  But the race was lost.

2.) Maureen Reagan ran for the Senate from California in 1982.  Her own father, who was then president, refused to break his pledge of remaining neutral in primary battles and wouldn’t endorse her.  Maureen lost.  She tried again for the House of Representatives and lost.  But Maureen is the only child of a president to serve as the Chairman of a major political party.  During her father’s second term, and in spite of White House aides trying to shoot down the idea, thinking that her public persona was only a reminder to the masses that Reagan had been married and divorced, she was elected the Republican National Co-Chairman.

3.) John William “Jack” Carter, a millionaire investment consultant, and eldest son of President Jimmy Carter, ran for the Senate from Nevada in 2006.  Carter won the primary and might have pulled off an upset against a well heeled opponent but Carter became gravely ill in the last months of the campaign and was hospitalized.  Most say he has a political future if he wants it.

A list of preteen girls who lived in the White House

Little girl’s in the White House

So what will it be like for Malia and Sasha? On inauguration day, Malia Obama would be 10 years old, Sasha Obama would be 7. There have been a lot of famous teenagers like Alice Roosevelt and Susan Ford and a long list of famous little boys, like Willie and Tad Lincoln. Have there been any other White House girls their ages? And what can they expect out of life? Here is a look at that short list of all the others and what happened to them.

Those Washington kids

When “Jacky” Custis, the president’s stepson and the birth son of the first lady, Martha Custis, died at age 27, he left his widow with four small children. The Washington’s took in two of them and so became replacement parents to a couple of their own grandchildren. Eleanor “Nelly” Custis was almost 10 years old, and brother George “Wash” Custis 9, when their grandfather began serving as president but they would never live in the White House. The first American capital was New York and then later Philadelphia. Ironically, it would be the next president, John Adams, who would be the first to live in Washington, D. C. and the first to live in the White House.

Martha Custis arranged for Nelly to attend Mrs. Graham’s school for young ladies and take piano lessons. But as in the case of many young and impressionable, preteen daughters to follow, Nelly spent her life in devotion to the president. She tenderly cared for him into his old age. She married one of the president’s nephews whom he had invited to Mt. Vernon.

Devoted to Daddy

The Rutherford B. Hayes family had 8 children and the two youngest almost match the ages of Malia and Sasha Obama. One was a girl.

Like, Malia, Fanny Hayes was a 10 year old, and the country fell in love with her. She was devoted to her father. When her mother died, after the family left the White House, Fanny assumed duties as his official hostess and refused to marry until here presidential father had died. Still beloved by the nation long after leaving the White House, her wedding was a huge event attended by the sitting president and cabinet who traveled from Washington to Ohio on the presidential train. When her husband died, ever the daddy’s girl, Fanny Smith changed her name back to Hayes. Like many children of the White House, her identity was merged with her father’s.

Ellen Arthur, daughter of president Chester Arthur, had two older brothers, but she was only 9 years old when her father became president. Her father shielded her successfully announcing that “my private life is nobody’s damn business.” The press agreed. She married and later died of surgical complications at age 43.

The famous White House Gang

The kid’s side of the White House of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft was dominated by little boys and their famous White House gang that among other things, lofted snow balls from the mansions roof on unsuspecting pedestrians below. But there was a little girl too.

Ethel Roosevelt, daughter of TR, was 9 and she became a public favorite. She married a medical doctor, Richard Derby, they had four children. The nation briefly saw her again in 1960 when she offered a seconding speech for the presidential nomination of Richard Nixon. She died in 1977 at age 86.

“Baby Ruth,” the most popular White House kid.

Ruth Cleveland “Baby Ruth” was a famous and beloved White House child in her day. She was 1 year old when the Cleveland’s moved back into the executive mansion, having been elected president for the second time. Ruth received so much attention that the president and first lady became alarmed and tried to shield her from the media. The clamor continued when she left the White House and when she died of diphtheria at age 12 the nation was shocked and went into mourning. The Curtis Candy Company allegedly renamed one of their favorite candy bars the “Baby Ruth” in her honor.

Esther Cleveland was the first child of a president to be born in the White House. She was four when they retired into private life. Although over shadowed by “Baby Ruth” Esther’s later wedding to Captain William Sydney Bosanquet was held at Westminster Abbey and became an international social event.

Marion Cleveland was born during the second year of the second Cleveland presidency. She was twice married (her first husband died) and extensively involved in the Girl Scouts of America. Her second husband was a U.S. attorney and “racket buster.” He served on the legal staff for the Nuremburg Trials.

Recent Kids

Caroline Kennedy was 3 years old, her little brother 2 months when they moved into the White House. The first lady kept them out of the limelight. The famous pictures of them scampering in the Oval Office was very atypical and only happened because the first lady was out of the country.

Caroline is now a Columbia Law School graduate, bestselling author and an attorney. She married Edwin Schlossberg in 1988. She is 50 years old. John F. Kennedy, Jr. was an attorney and publisher, married to Carolyn Bessette. In 1999, they died in an airplane that he was piloting. He was 38 years old.

Amy Carter was 9 when she moved into the White House. She won the hearts of the American people from the first day, when she walked with her father in the inaugural parade. She will forever be famous because of her father’s reference to her in a presidential debate. “I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day, before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was [and she said it was nuclear proliferation."] The president was trying to show that even his young daughter could see the importance of the issue but it was an awkward moment that didn’t quite work. Amy went onto graduate from Tulane with a master’s degree in fine arts and history and is today a 41 year old wife and mother.

Chelsea Clinton was 12 when she moved into the White House and turned 13 within days. At age 20, while her mother, the First Lady, ran for the U. S. Senate, Chelsea took on some of the duties as White House hostess. A graduate of Stanford and Oxford, she worked for three years at McKinsey and Company, a consulting firm in New York City. These past two years she helped in her mother’s presidential campaign and is now back into post graduate university studies. She is 28 years old and single. Friends describe her as “scary bright.”

(Some information and some quotes taken from All the Presidents’ Children, Atria Books.)

You Tubes: Malia and Sasha in the white house

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc0ffwqgym0&feature=channel_page

Malia and Sasha’s first day at school

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9h-v9Ba3VA

Where will Sasha and Malia Obama go to school?

First big decision?

One of the first big news stories for the First Family on the personal front will be the choice of schools for Malia and Sasha Obama. Will it be private or public? Or will they bring tutors and teachers into the White House and create their own school for the girls, with a mix of neighbors and friends?

Under normal circumstances, any choice would be the source of criticism. Go to a private school and be seen as elitist and hypocritical. Go to a public school and see it turn into a media circus and totally disrupt the lives of all the other kids and parents. A more sophisticate political plan would have the children make a high profile appearance at public school, let the press and public see how unreasonable that is, and then later transfer to a private school when the story has moved to page nine.

But the Obama’s are different. They have lots of popularity and that provides political equity. And they have made it clear that their children are high priorities in their lives. What better use of that equity than investing in the lives of their own daughters?

My guess? The O’s will do what’s best for their children and take the political heat. And that will likely be a combination of private schools, with tutors.

Don’t worry, whatever happens, just living at the White House guarantees that darling Malia and Sasha Obama are in for a stunning education.

You can get more details at my site Upstairs at the White House. www.upstairsatthewhitehouse.com