President Clinton and Bob Dole have more in common than wanting to be president. They are distant cousins.
But Clinton has a snootier pedigree, according to genealogists who say that gives him an election edge.Both Clinton and Dole can trace their ancestry to King Henry III and presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, according to Burke's Peerage, a publishing house that traces the lineage of royal and noble families.
But Clinton has far more royal blood than Dole because he is directly descended from King Robert I of France and is also related to every Scottish monarch and to the current British royal family.
Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage, says Clinton's bluer blood gives him an edge in November's election.
"The presidential candidate with the greatest number of royal genes has always been the victor, without exception, since George Washington," said Brooks-Baker, an American from Baltimore, Md., who has lived in Britain since 1968.
"Only the merest drop of royal blood flows in the veins of Senator Dole," he said.
Dole's sole royal link is to Henry III, who ruled England from 1227 to 1272. He is related to the king on his mother's side, through the Talbott and Harrison families of Maryland and Virginia, according to Burke's.
The Dole family's history of political service dates back to the mid-1600s when the candidate's ancestor, Richard Ewen, served as a speaker of the House of Burgesses Assembly in Maryland.
Clinton's royal roots, Brooks-Baker said, include several medieval monarchs and Simon de Montford, a statesman and soldier under King Henry III who lived from 1208 to 1265 and married the king's sister Eleanor. Through de Montford, Clinton is related to every ancient aristocratic family in Britain today.
On his mother's side, Clinton is also related to President Andrew Jackson and to Davy Crockett, the frontier folk hero who died in 1836 defending the Alamo during the war for Texan independence.