EMAIL DETAILS

After the first few paragraphs, an interesting piece that shows how
opponents run against "dynasty" candidates

<http://www.politico.com/>

*Dynasties in the dumps in 2010*
By: Emily Schultheis
June 26, 2010 06:08 PM EDT

The 2010 elections have a surprisingly nostalgic feel to them.

Six sons of governors have launched bids for the jobs their fathers once
held. A handful of congressional scions have also sought high office for the
first time this year. Then there are the two dozen or so House and Senate
incumbents whose parents also served in Congress, who will be on the ballot
in November.

Yet while the proliferation of legacy candidates is a familiar and recurring
theme in American politics, this year’s version of it isn’t—in a break with
custom and in a nod to the current anti-establishment climate, the dynasty
candidates aren’t faring so well.

The most recent example comes from South Carolina, where not one but two
congressional offspring failed in recent bids to capture the GOP nomination
in an open Charleston-based House seat.

These were no ordinary legacy candidates. One, Paul
Thurmond<http://topics.politico.com/index.cfm/topic/PaulThurmond>,
was the son of the famed former Gov. and Sen. Strom Thurmond, a former
presidential candidate whose statue can be found on the grounds of the state
capitol building.

The other, Carroll Campbell III, was the son of another former governor and
congressman of the same name.

Campbell never made it out of the June 8 primary. Thurmond did well enough
to place in the June 22 runoff, but lost by a landslide.

In defeat, Thurmond and Campbell joined three other would-be political heirs
who fell short in primary elections this year—Ethan Hastert, the son of
former House Speaker Dennis
Hastert<http://topics.politico.com/index.cfm/topic/DennisHastert>of
Illinois; Pete Domenici, Jr., the son and namesake of the former
six-term
New Mexico senator; and Tim James, the son of former Alabama Gov. Fob
James.

Since high name recognition tends to give legacy candidates an unmistakable
advantage in elections—they also inherit their family’s political
connections and a built-in fundraising network—the fact that five budding
dynasties were snuffed out qualifies as an eyebrow-raising political
happenstance.

“I can’t really recall another year where you might even say, whether it’s
true or not, that it’s a liability to have had a successful or distinguished
forbearer in politics,” said Stephen Hess, senior fellow emeritus at the
Brookings Institution and author of America’s Political Dynasties. “Up to a
point, it’s always been considered a plus.”

Not this year, though. In Hastert’s
case<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31859.html>,
in a primary where he sought the GOP nomination to run against Rep. Bill
Foster, the Democrat who won his father’s seat in a special election, state
Sen. Randy Hultgren sought to remind voters that congressional seats are not
heirlooms.

In an interview with POLITICO shortly after winning the February primary,
Hultgren observed: “This isn’t the Foster seat, it’s not the Hastert seat,”
he said. “It’s the 14th Congressional District seat.”
In South Carolina, where Thurmond lost 68 percent to 32 percent in Tuesday’s
runoff, Republican voters also made a dramatic break with the past—they
delivered the nomination to Tim Scott, who is now likely to become the first
African-American Republican in the House since Oklahoma’s J.C. Watts and the
first black GOP congressman from the Deep South since Reconstruction.
“He’s a fine young man, but he got trounced,” said Katon Dawson, a former
South Carolina GOP chairman, of Thurmond.

According to Dawson, the younger Thurmond sought to capitalize on his
father’s record – he made similar campaign signs and logos to those his
father used, and wasn’t able to independently “define what he was about.”

Hailing from a political family “causes the individual sons or daughters a
challenge to get over the dynasties and define themselves,” Dawson added.
“Sometimes that hurts you electorally.”

In Nevada, where Rory Reid, the son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is
the Democratic nominee for governor, the situation is even more complicated.
With his father struggling in the polls amid widespread dissatisfaction with
Congress and Washington, Reid, a Clark County commissioner, has removed his
last name from his ads and website and is running his campaign simply as
“Rory 2010.”

The Nevada situation is especially “tricky,” said Hess, since both father
and son are on the ballot during the same election season. If voters closely
associate the two Reids, this November could consist of people “going down
the ballot and just marking, ‘Reid,’ ‘Reid,’ ‘Reid,’ – or the opposite,” he
said.

Despite the notable number of defeats, 2010 hasn’t yet been a total loss for
the cause of political dynasty. Four sons of governors—Jerry Brown of
California, Mike McWherter of Tennessee, Andrew Cuomo of New York and Terry
Goddard of Arizona—are either the Democratic nominees, or likely nominees,
for governor in their states. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, the son of
former governor and Sen. John Chafee, is running competitively for governor
as an independent candidate.
Cuomo, the son of former three-term Gov. Mario Cuomo, polls far ahead of any
of his November opponents.

And at least one legacy candidate has managed to score an unusual,
breakthrough win this year. In Kentucky, GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul, son
of Texas Rep. and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, has not only
managed to upset the Republican establishment to capture the party nod, he’s
done it in a state far from where his father Is based.

As a result, said Hess, the younger Paul was able to capitalize on his
father’s connections without paying the price for the associations with
Washington. The Paul family constitutes an “outsider dynasty,” he said, a
seemingly contradictory idea Hess applied only to them.

Hess still expects that when the numbers are tallied up in November, the
majority of dynasty candidates on the ballot will get elected or
reelected—just not at the same sky-high rates as in the past.

What makes him so sure that most will win?

“[T]hey always do,” Hess explained.


--

Alexander Snyder-Mackler
(302) 598-867