Talk:List of United States political families

message: I'm not even sure what the disagreement is because most of the reversions have gone without comment (Wik's reversions of RickK, RickK's reversion to his version instead of mine).  Before either of you (Wik and RickK) revert again, please explain what you don't like in the current article.  Thanks.  Daniel Quinlan 20:20, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
I corrected a spelling ("occurence" -> "occurrence") yesterday, and this keeps getting reverted. --Wik 20:30, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
: I think it is inappropriate to revert a significant addition over the spelling of a single word and to summarize the change with simply "rv". You failed to mention the spelling error in each of 4 reversions. It would have been trivial, even easier, for you to correct the error without reverting.  I already had added this page to Wikipedia:Current disputes over articles, but that now seems like the wrong place given your frankly inadequate rationale for these reversions. Misspelling that word seems like an innocent error on the part of RickK. Daniel Quinlan 20:45, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
::It's not that RickK misspelled it. He didn't deal with the first paragraph at all, yet he reverted my correction there. This may be the result of a rare bug, but in general this is caused by an edit conflict, when a user simply copies his revision over the previous one. I have discussed this with many users before (see my talk archives), but I'm not changing my principle of strict reversion in those cases. Of course it would be easier in a simple case like this to just ignore the other person's faux pas and redo my edit, but I don't want to encourage this kind of behaviour. (Note: I'm not accusing RickK, as he said he has no idea how it happened in this case. But if it was a bug, this is so rare that it does not change my principle.) --Wik 20:55, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
:::What behavior?  It would have been easier, more friendly, and more cool-headed to redo your edit (which was much smaller than RickK's) and send a polite note to RickK.  The principle seems to have been to punish simple mistakes with no explanation, as in a Pavlovian experiment.  Please treat other users with more respect.  Daniel Quinlan 21:05, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
::::The behaviour of ignoring edit conflicts. This is not a simple mistake; if you do it, you do it consciously, since you have to copy your revision from the bottom box and paste it into the top box. That is the unfriendly behaviour, not my reversion. I stand exactly by what I said. --Wik 21:08, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
:::::That may have happened, I don't know.  However it happened, compounding it with unexplained reversions is decidedly unhelpful, unfriendly, and only serves to escalate matters.  Daniel Quinlan 21:27, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
::::::Well, I know. That's what happens in at least 99% of those cases. And it is that behaviour that is decidedly unhelpful, unfriendly, and disrespectful, not my reaction to it. --Wik 21:55, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
: Would anyone object if I deleted this section (or moved it, perhaps?). It's not really relevant to the article itself, now this is resolved... Martin 22:23, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: No objection, is there a way to lock this page to reduce the edit wars? I see that this page is edited about once an hour on weekdays. I would also like to delete this section.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by BlairLTFPM (talk • contribs) 15:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Reversions

message: I don't see how you even need this article. It's all just speculation and without any actual content. As it is, it seems like a worthless page to me, and I don't even like the Bush family. Dori 20:38, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
: I agree that Wikipedia would be better without the article.  It seems like an ever-increasing amount of Wikipedia is devoted to discussion of and around punditry.  Daniel Quinlan 20:50, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
::Do you think it should be put on VfD? -- Mattworld 21:01, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why not? I would recommend looking to see if there are any similar articles of the same purely speculative nature and propose their deletion at the same time. This article would look pretty dated and silly if Bush isn't re-elected (which would probably mean Jeb Bush would be quite unlikely to become President), another encyclopedic-content test that it fails. Daniel Quinlan 21:22, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
I can understand fears of partisanship, but does it really need to stretch to deleting a page discussing a very widely used term for the way the Bush family has succeeded in getting two Presidents so far, and looks like a good candidate for getting a third? Note that some of the references I just added were from a serious news organization after the current President was first elected, so it's not simply a question of GW getting elected again or waiting for his brother. The conspiracy theory merits attention. So does this more serious coverage of the topic. JamesDay 02:00, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Delete the article?

message: At this point the page "Bush Dynasty" was listed on VfD (it appeared like this), where it received a largely negative reception.  Following discussions there, User:Cimon Avaro renamed it to Historic US political families, and various wikipedians set about adding additional US political dynasties.
*Bush dynasty List of US political families
** -- all guessing, little basis in fact, no references. -- Mattworld 03:07, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: VfD and rename

message: A more procedural question, to improve page consistency: Do we want to list birth and death (where applicable) years after names on this list? Right now some families have them, and others don't. -FZ 18:16, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: dates?

message: This list was removed from Political families by country: N-Z, to avoid divergence. Please check whether all of the below are already here and remove the checked items from the below. Mikkalai 21:28, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: List from elsewhere

message: Reviewing the page recently (goodness it's grown) I noticed that it's really rather messy.  Probably I'll go in and try to fix it up since I'm on deployment right now and have little else to do.  Would anyone care to comment on the following?
*The discussion above re: dates; I think it makes sense to list birth and death dates for each individual to give some indication of when the family was important and by how much members of earlier generations preceded later generations.  So I'll add dates.  However, I'll probably not wikify the dates because that seems not to be the trend in those cases where dates are currently found.
*Bullets make it easier to read.  Bullets which are then stepped down by generation make it easier still, and in cases like the Kennedys where there's a great deal of intermingling the family-tree style setup seems quite nice.  I'll rework those families that either fail to use bullets or just list everyone at a single bullet to match this; I don't think there's much left in terms of nesting, at least not until the Bush children start running for office on their own God save us all.
*And finally, what exactly qualifies as an American political family?  There is presently on this page at least one family that seems not to be of any consequence to the nation at large (The Hagans), and we also have the request to import what I can assure you would be an absolutely massive amount of information from the political graveyard.  This concerns me.
It seems to me we need a bit of a litmus test to decide which families warrant inclusion here.  Certainly there are numerous instances of fathers and sons and brothers and cousins and what all else being prominent within their states, as the Hagans seem to be, but this hardly qualifies IMO as worthy of being named a "U.S. Political Family."  I propose the following:
A family must have at least one member to have served as one of the following: Governor of a state; U.S. Representative; U.S. Senator; Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; Vice President; or President.
Without at least one family member in one of these national positions, I find it hard to call a family a U.S. political family.  Instead they'd be an Ohio political family or what have you.  We might perhaps also consider prominent ambassadors and or justices of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, especially if it was a case where several family members were ambassadors or justices on the court of appeals.
Any comments on this?  Thehappysmith 16:13, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There are a large number  of women who won a special election to the House or Senate after the death of a family member, usually a husband. Is the intent to add them all, like Edith Nourse Rogers, Mae Ella Nolan, Florence Prag Kahn, Winnifred Sprague Mason Huck, Mary Bono, Lois Capps, Jean Carnahan (listed), and Jo Ann Emerson? 68.81.231.127 00:30, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: I concur with Thehappysmith's proposal, with one addition -- President's cabinet. This allows us to list the Powells, for instance, and I think they should be on this list. I think I would also accept nominee of a major party for the presidency, although most such persons have another reason to make the list. Once a family makes the list, though, I'm happy to be more flexible about who gets listed. As for stand-in wives, I don't think most of them really fit; few have distinguished careers beyond filling out a term. Unless a family is here for another reason, or the spouse continues and gains distinction, they probably shouldn't be on this list. --Dhartung | Talk 07:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What is an American family?

message: Removed from Walker family:
:*Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, (b. 1944) U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; received his commission, November 1989; made Chief Judge, 2004.
I could find no evidence that Judge Walker (born in Watseka, IL) was related to George Herbert Walker of St. Louis, or William P. Walker of Mass., as the article stated. A NY Times bio which mentions the other Judge Walker, who is a cousin of GHWB, fails to note any familial relationship.  --Dhartung | Talk 07:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vaughn R. Walker

message: I've revamped the section on the Walker family, as Dorothy Walker is clearly no descendant of William P. Walker, nor was he related to her patrilineal line in any obvious way -- Walker's just a reasonably common name. His son-in-law David Davis, though, was a blood cousin of the Walkers and Bushes. The resulting arrangement is awkward, but I hope clarified by the subsection naming. It made sense to get George H. Walker in there, even though he never held office, and so I kept the short intro which explains the relationship to the Bush family. --Dhartung | Talk 08:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Walker family

message: This is a glaring omission!  Thurston B. Morton represented Kentucky in the U.S. House at the same time his brother Rogers Morton represented Maryland in the House.  Thurston went on to serve in the Eisenhower administration, two terms in the U.S. Senate, and as chairman of the Republican National Committee.  Rogers served as Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Commerce.  Many families listed on this page pale in comparison to these two. 20:45, 6 August 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.225.120.195 (talk • contribs) .
:Thanks for mentioning it. Being left off the page (as long as the article scope is attained) isn't a judgement of notability, it's just an omission. --Dhartung | Talk 22:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Morton Family

message: Admittedly I don't know much about them, but it seems like a glaring omission. Wasn't one of George's nephews a Congressman and then another someone important? -MichiganCharms 22:02, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite right -- they should be on here. I have just added what I could find on them. Awbeal 02:55, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Washington Family?

message: This may be a silly question, but what exactly should a 'political' family be - should it be 'elected representatives'? Or should families which have a history of being highly involved in the political process be, or could they be categorized such? It's not as simple when you look above, at "Walker Family" and realize that people are on this list without holding office, so at what point is the line in the sand drawn? Achromatic (talk) 08:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say election to high national elected office, serious candidacies for President, national-cabinet-level appointed office, or head of a national political party all qualify to make a person "political" with enough import to count for this list.  State or local equivalents would count if they had a national impact, such as a few big-state governors or big-city mayors have had.  davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Political Family

message: I don't know how to do it - could someone point out where I can learn? - but I think having "American political families" redirect here would be good; I spent a fair amount of time looking for this page and not having it show up because of the US vs. American term.  Just a suggestion. Jordanp (talk) 02:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Add a Redirect?

message: Nothing substantive to add... just noting some mentions of this list in the media today. One, in The Plank, and the other Howard Kurtz's Media Notes in the Washington Post linking to The Plank. Hiberniantears (talk) 14:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Media

message: I removed the following:
:Gil Peretz, author of the book Obama's Secrets, also predicts that Chelsea Clinton will one day become "the first female President of the United States". (cited to http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/01/11/obama-expert-predicts-chelsea-clinton-presidency)
This appears to be pure speculation on the part of someone who, according to the article, "doesn't appear to have any ties to the Clintons". Since Chelsea has not yet run for any office yet, it seems like crystal-ballery to speculate that no other woman might win the Presidency before she does (such as, for example, her own mother, who is the current front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination). --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:59, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chelsea Clinton 

message: I have noticed an issue with the Dunham section… not all of them are related. There are (at least) two separate Dunham families lumped together.  Are we assuming that anyone with the same name is related? Blueboar (talk) 16:40, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Same last name… but not related 

message: Unlike most political families, 99% of the clout of the Stevens family comes from their main member, Ted Stevens (1923-2010), but nearly all political affairs to do with Alaska have their input, such as Ted's 2nd wife, Catherine endorsing Biden in 2020 on behalf of the Stevens family, in a race where, though likely a coincidence, Biden became the first Democrat to break 40% since 1968, or the numerous honors provided to Ted Stevens which the Stevens family would push for & back, such as the Anchorage International Airport, Arctic Security Center, .etc, or even just how one of the major reasons the 2008 corruption scandal started was because of the, then-now-in-the-national-spotlight, Ben Stevens, and his behavior as President of the state's State Senate. Plus, the Stevenses, especially (or mainly) Ted, not only just drew national attention, but made many contributions to the whole nation and it's laws, such as the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Act or the Ted Stevens Olympics Act. However, Catherine is the sponsor of both the USS Alaska (SSBN-732) and the USS Ted Stevens (DDG-128), the latter also sponsored by Susan Stevens-Covich & Lily Stevens-Becker, daughters of the Senator. I feel like they are nationally prominent, especially with more effect than, say, the DuPonts or the Muhlenbergs. However, I could see a potential dispute over the fact that they had only 1 prominent member who brought them all up, while other families had multiple prominent members who all had to make it up themselves, while the Stevens family got the majority of their influence by relation to Ted. As such, I want to have a discussion & general vote here to see if the Stevens would be an acceptable contribution to the front page, or if they should not be added to the list of nationally prominent families. I vote in favor. Mycranthebigman of Alaska ^_^ 15:42, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I've generally decided that they are nationally prominent, but purely because of the merits of their extremely powerful figurehead. Ben received national attention, but part of the reason he got the office was because of the support of his powerful father. They were nationally prominent, but most, if not all, of their merit lies upon Ted, thus it would be improper to put them on the front page's list. I came to this conclusion with the help of User:GI Brown 1970, who presented this argument to me. The discussion should be considered closed. Mycranthebigman of Alaska ^_^ 15:56, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Would the Stevens family of Alaska be considered nationally prominent?