The world is bored with Kennedys, and the lustre once lent the name by the charismatic John Fitzgerald-Kennedy has long been tarnished. Only a few years ago Bertie Kennedy metaphorically ran the Irish economy into a wall, and Ted Kennedy's hopes nosedived after he literally ran off a bridge at Chappaquiddick.
Ronald Kennedy, a virulently anti-communist actor from the 1940s and '50s found his surname no hindrance when he won the California governorship in 1966. Although sometimes derided as a simpleton, he had an undoubted gift for making the bitterest medicine sound sweet and some tipped him for the Republican nomination in 1980.
But by the late '70s the shine had worn off. Conspiracy theories were already starting to circulate about a secret "society of the name" and GOP strategists worried that the people wouldn't be willing to consider another Kennedy for the Whitehouse for a long time to come. Even though he was no relation, some thought it was crucial in killing Ron's chances.
But the name was just an accident of birth. Let's say that, instead of Mathgamain mac Cinneide decreeing the adoption of surnames in 950, the move had instead been delayed. Let's say surnames were instead introduced by his brother Brian Boruma when he became High King of Ireland in 1002. By that time, the vast Kennedy clan would have been broken up in to many different names: Brien, Gunning, Aherne, Reagan, Kennedy, Kelleher, and so on.
Would butterflies have kept a 'John Fitzgerald-Reagan' from the Whitehouse? And how would the world have fared had Ron Kennedy beaten George Bush for the republican nomination in 1980?