Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is affianced to long time boy friend Marc Mezvinsky, a Goldman Sachs investment banker and the son of two former members of Congress.
While we of course wish the couple every happiness, we also look on with interest the political pedigree of the now to be married couple.
Chelsea Clinton’s political antecedents are well-known and do not need to be touched on at length. Chelsea Clinton is the daughter of a former President and a former Senator, former Presidential Candidate, and current Secretary of State. Chelsea Clinton herself works for a hedge fund.
But it seems that her beau is not unfamiliar with political skullduggery on the part of parents.
Ed Mezvinsky was once a Congressman from Iowa, sitting on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate Scandal. Ed Mezvinsky then served President Jimmy Carter as a member of the UN Commission on Human Rights. Attempts to run for offices such as Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Senator, and Lt. Governor were all met with defeat.
Later Ed Mezvinsky was sentenced to prison for his involvement in a series of fraud schemes over a period of twenty years, many of them having to do with shadowy Nigerians whom users of the Internet are all too familiar with, from 1980 to 2000. Ed Mezvinsky was released from prison on April 11, 2008.
Marc Mezvinsky’s mother, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, served a single term in Congress in the early 1990s. She provided the deciding vote for President Bill Clinton’s 1993 budget that included tax increases. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky was mocked on the floor of the House by her Republican colleagues for what appeared to be her caving under pressure from the House leadership. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky was subsequently defeated in the 1994 Gingrich Revolution along with many other Democratic members. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky subsequently lost a race for Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania in 1998. Subsequent hopes of a political career and a run for the Senate were apparently derailed by Ed Mezvinsky’s fraud convictions.
Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky were apparently childhood friends during the Clinton administration, but only started dating in 2005. Theirs will not be the first mating of two political families. The most famous was Julie Nixon, the daughter of President Nixon, to David Eisenhower, the grandson of Dwight Eisenhower.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was still an actor when he married Marie Shriver, a Kennedy relative, but he eventually became a politician in his own right as Governor of California. The Schwarzenegger/Shriver marriage has been one of the few of its type between a Republican and a Democrat.
The most interesting political marriage took place in 1994 between two members of Congress, Bill Paxon and Susan Molinari, who were allies and then opponents of Newt Gingrich during the Gingrich Revolution of 1994. Bill Paxon proposed to Molinari on the House floor.
Rumors had swirled about the romance between Marc Mezvinsky and Chelsea Clinton for some time, with even stories about a wedding taking place at Martha’s Vinyard that subsequently proved to be false. Marc Mezvinsky and Chelsea Clinton will apparently be married next Summer.
Source: Chelsea Clinton Engaged to Marc Mezvinsky, Human Khan and Kate Snow, ABC News, November 30th, 2009
