Stranger in a Strange State: The Politics of Carpetbagging From Robert Kennedy to Scott Brown by Christopher J. Galdieri

Author:Christopher J. Galdieri [Galdieri, Christopher J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Campaigns & Elections, United States, Political Science, Political Process, History, General
ISBN: 9781438474045
Google: EEyWDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2019-05-01T14:06:31+00:00

Discussion

All four of these candidates came to their races with the sorts of records and backgrounds that tend to make for credible candidacies. Former governors, members of Congress, presidential candidates, and national security officials who decide to run for office are normally taken seriously by their opponents, potential supporters, news outlets, and state political parties. Despite their credentials, neither Peabody, Keyes, Ford, nor Cheney was able to win election. Peabody and Keyes found themselves in the by-now-familiar situation of being given a party’s nomination because that party had no better options and nothing to lose (though some Illinois Republicans might care to argue the latter case). And once the New Hampshire Democrats and Illinois Republicans had found a candidate to appear on the ballot, they treated those races—in terms of time, personnel, and other resources—like the impossible causes they were. They kept their distance and tried to limit the damage their losses would do to the rest of the party’s candidates for other offices.

At least Peabody and Keyes were nominated by their parties. The cases of Ford and Cheney show that when state and national party leaders line up behind an incumbent (even an appointed one), it is virtually impossible for a carpetbagger to gain enough traction to become competitive. It may be tempting to look at these as cases no different than any other failed primary insurgency. But each offers important insights into the role the politics of place plays in American electoral politics. Ford’s case demonstrates the limits of insider and media appeal. While Gillibrand’s status as an appointee who had never won statewide made her a tempting target on paper, Ford eventually succumbed to the same logic that led Gillibrand’s other potential challengers to decide against running. Her status as an appointed senator gave her a better platform and more opportunities to build support and engage in meaningful representational activity than Ford had as a carpetbagger. As for Cheney, once she failed to scare Enzi into retirement, her campaign was doomed. But a candidate with deeper ties to Wyoming might have realized just how difficult it would be to dislodge an unwilling Enzi and found a different avenue for her office-holding ambitions or not run in 2014 in the first place. But the fact that Cheney was able to rebound and win election to the House in 2016 has implications for carpetbagging and individual political careers and ambitions that will be discussed in the concluding chapter of this book.

The next chapter considers the most famous recent case of carpetbagging—former senator Scott Brown’s 2014 attempt to win election in New Hampshire, just two years after his loss to Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts. Like every other carpetbagger, he ran in part because both he and his new state’s party lacked a better alternative. While he lost, however, his campaign enjoyed an unusual level of support from the national arms of the Republican Party. Closer examination will help determine whether Brown’s campaign represents a new type of carpetbagger campaigning.

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