Reading Rand Paul's prescription for a bigger and better GOP, I was struck by an interesting thought--since 1988, only one Republican nominee (coincidentally the only one I thought of voting for, Bob Dole), owed virtually none of his success in life to his dad. ( Rand Paul to say the least, owes everything to his dad). The rest--wow!
George HW Bush's dad was a US senator. Bush's son's dad was the POTUSA. McCain's dad was an admiral and Romney's the governor of Michigan/CEO of American Motors. (In McCain's case, his second wife's dad bankrolled him--double nepotism!).
In contrast, for the Democrats in this time frame, only Al Gore was a "daddy's boy".
For a party that believes in "pulling yourselves up by the bootstraps" to become a "self made man" that's a "maker and not a taker", their role models are more or less the opposite in real life, ain't they?