The Washington Post now picks up on the Hillary-Indira meme:

… surnames function as a form of branding, particularly in very large, inattentive electorates such as those of India, Argentina and the United States. In theory, you know what you’ll get, more or less, if you elect a Gandhi in India or a Clinton in America: You can save yourself the time it would take to read about them. Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, she is running for election at a moment when the flaws of oligarchy and dynasty are on display as never before…

[Obama’s] race also functions as a form of branding, telling you that he is the anti-oligarch in this contest… You don’t have to hear him speak to know he isn’t related to this president or any other: Just look at his photograph. [Link]

So does the Boston Globe:

[The Gandhi saga] should all be familiar to American voters. John Ashcroft became the first senator to be defeated by a dead man, Mel Carnahan, who died a couple of weeks before the 2000 election, but whose name remained on the ballot. His widow, Jean, took his Senate seat. Governor George W. Bush was picked by the Republican establishment for the presidency in 2000 on the strength of his father’s name. It is Hillary Clinton, however, who provides the best example of dynastic politics at work. She is the candidate of the Democratic establishment seeking a restoration because of her husband’s eight years in office and her own Indira-like sense of entitlement. [Link]

There’s a long tradition of Yalies ascending to the U.S. presidency:

If Clinton wins the White House for two terms, we would also end up having a person with a degree from Yale in the White House for 28 years. [Link]

Yale was, of course, funded by profits from exploiting India:

[Elihu] Yale amassed a fortune in his lifetime, largely through secret contracts with Madras merchants, against the East India Company’s directive. By 1692, Elihu Yale’s repeated flouting of East India Company regulations, and growing embarrassment at his illegal profiteering resulted in his being relieved of the post of governor…

Yale was responsible for imposing high taxes for the maintenance of the colonial garrison and town. His regime was unpopular and led to several revolts by Indians, which were brutally quelled by garrison soldiers. Yale was also notorious for arresting and trying Indians on his own private authority, including the hanging of a stable boy who had absconded with a Company horse. [Link]

In a funny footnote, we now know why the school name so handsomely rendered in maple leaves and Galliard Italic on marketing brochures, received the christening it did:

… Yale University was successful largely because of the generosity of a man named Jeremiah Dummer, but that the trustees of the school did not want it known by the name “Dummer College.” [Link]

Elihu Yale reportedly got his name from Welsh lineage, but did much business in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu. Rumors that the name is actually ‘Ale’ in a Tamilian English accent are malicious, scurrilous and shouldn’t be repeated.

Related posts: Obama homers, Hillary dithers , Huma resources , Obama outro (updated), Hillary and Indira (updated again)