Bush and Kerry's Social Past

He is a scion of American aristocracy whose path through life has been strewn with privilege.

Born to a family with deep roots on the Eastern Seaboard and a powerful place in U.S. history, he was pushed out of the nest into a boarding school where he often felt out of place. But that school -- and his name -- would help pave the way into an Ivy League college.

At Yale, he was tapped for an exclusive secret society. The first-born son of a father who was a World War II pilot, he too learned to fly and served his country during wartime.

His first run at political office was a disaster. Accused of carpetbagging, he was badly thumped. But he dusted himself off and went to work. Years later, he would again try his hand at politics. This time he would succeed, and spectacularly.

Now he is running for president of the United States. And that's the curious thing: While this thumbnail biography describes President Bush to a T, it also describes his presumed Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.

Indeed, the lives of both candidates, in broad strokes, paint a classic portrait of American privilege."These people are definitely in the American hereditary upper class," said Gary Boyd Roberts, a Boston genealogist who has traced Bush's and Kerry's lineages and discovered they are distantly related. (Branches of their family trees cross eight times, said Roberts; at the closest point, they are ninth cousins). They are also descended from medieval kings.

How has privilege played out in their lives? Very differently, as it turns out.

Bush, a true social and political aristocrat, has spent much of his life publicly distancing himself from his patrician roots, while quietly availing himself of family connections."Privilege completely and utterly defines George Bush," said his biographer, Texas journalist Bill Minutaglio."I don't think it's pejorative to point that out."

Kerry, whose family glory lies in an illustrious and historic past, has worked energetically to secure his place in the upper reaches of American society, and twice married heiresses."His parents came from modest wealth," said his biographer, historian Douglas Brinkley."He was always a little cash-poor for the milieu he was running around in. He's like the F. Scott Fitzgerald figure looking into that world with one foot in and one foot out."

The novelist Christopher Buckley, an acerbic social observer who wrote speeches for Bush's father when he was vice president, said of the two political rivals:"Bush set out to distance himself from the world of Eastern establishmentarian privilege.... The funny thing is that Kerry sort of looks more like the guy who was born with the silver spoon, but economically, his circumstances were far less golden. That's the paradox...."