'08 Hopefuls With No Place To Call Home
By The Politico's Jonathan Martin.
The 2008 presidential campaign has already produced the next generation of American politicians. They don't have local accents. That's because they don't have local roots. Nor do they boast legions of home-state friends, teachers and mentors who have spent years waiting for the proud day when their talented native son or daughter would run for president.
These are the candidates from nowhere - or everywhere.
With the race still in its early stages, the top tier of contenders in both parties is filled with people who reflect a new brand of post-regional politics. These candidates convey no distinct sense of place in either their personal style or political base.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain are the prototype examples. In both cases, they represent states where they had scant personal history until they settled there to run for office.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney also reflect the trend. The Illinois senator, vying with Clinton for the Democratic nomination, was born in Hawaii and raised there and in Indonesia before settling in Chicago after an Ivy League education in New York and Boston. Republican Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, grew up in Michigan, and established his national profile by running the Winter Olympic Games in Utah.
Not one of these major politicians represents the state where they grew up or have family history - a new chapter in modern political history.
Among the first-rung candidates, only Democrat John Edwards of North Carolina and Republican Rudy Giuliani of New York are defined in the public mind vividly by where they are from. In both cases, these politicians have personal stories inextricably linked to their home states — a fact amplified by thick and unmistakable regional accents.
Until recently, this type of politician was the norm. Bill Clinton, for instance, was seasoned and deep-fried in his native Arkansas, and his personal story of growing up in "a place called Hope" (not to mention Hot Springs) was an important part of how he presented himself to national voters in 1992.
But 2008 is showing how the old assumptions about politics and regional identity are fading fast.
"There have been huge homogenizing influences of America in last 50 years," said Robert Lang, co-director of Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute and a professor of urban affairs and planning. "Everything that was a local brand is now nationalized." That includes politicians no less than beer and department stores.
In an earlier era, a candidate without thick local roots would have been at a distinct disadvantage trying to climb onto a national stage without a base of regional supporters, fellow politicians and donors. These days, the opposite may be true: Politicians with a muted geographical identity may be better positioned to compete in parts of the country — including fast-growing swing states like Nevada and Florida — where most folks are originally from somewhere else.
The 2008 candidates "represent the experience of a lot of Americans," said William Frey, a demographer and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. "They're living now in a different place than where they grew up."
A generation ago, if you learned that a candidate like Romney was a Harvard-educated Bostonian, it was a safe guess that he would be a lace-curtain Irishman like John F. Kennedy or a Brahmin in the tradition of the Cabots or Lodges. In his case, though, his father was a former automotive executive who became governor of Michigan.
A black pol from Chicago's South Side? Twenty years ago, that would most likely have been a first- or second-generation transplant up from Mississippi who paid his dues in the city's legendary ward politics. Think former Mayor Harold Washington. Obama, however, came to Chicago to lead voter registration efforts, practice law and teach at the University of Chicago's law school. His wife, Michelle, is from the city.
A female New York lawyer? Once that would have been an ambitious ethnic pol from one of the outer boroughs like former Reps. Elizabeth Holtzman, Bella Abzug or Geraldine Ferraro. Clinton, of course, broke many molds by running for office as a sitting first lady, and she was helped by the historic willingness of New Yorkers to welcome outsiders, as they did with Robert Kennedy in 1964.
McCain faced his own carpetbagging criticism when he first ran for a House seat in 1982, entering a crowded GOP primary field. He swatted the critics away with one good line: "When I think about it, I guess the place I've lived the longest was Hanoi."
It didn't hurt that the state McCain happened to move to was and still is experiencing explosive growth thanks to snowbirds fleeing the chilly climes of the Midwest and Californians seeking their fortune in the less-crowded, less-expensive desert to the east.
Romney arguably has a more solid claim on his Massachusetts ties. Despite his Michigan roots and undergraduate work at Stanford and Brigham Young University, Romney came to Cambridge for a joint MBA/JD in the 1970s and stayed. Still, there was no lack of buzz about his seeking office in Utah after he took over the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune in 2001, Romney acknowledged his desire to run but appeared conflicted about where to launch his political career. Somewhere between the "geographical poles" of Utah and Massachusetts, he said vaguely when asked in which state it would be. He'll underscore the point next week when he makes his official announcement — at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich.
To Charles Mahtesian, editor of the indispensable Almanac of American Politics, the four politicians represent "the next iteration" in the broad sweep of the American story.
"John F. Kennedy was an expression of the Northeastern Catholic experience. Ronald Reagan was one of the many Midwesterners who sought their fortune in California. Place figured very prominently in their experiences and aspirations, as it did for many voters," said Mahtesian. "But place is no longer as relevant to the American narrative and that's reflected in the backgrounds of the current presidential front-runners ... The candidates reflect the mobility of the voters."
To these rootless voters, a candidate's race, region and ethnicity matter less than their ideas and ideology, says Joel Kotkin, an author and close observer of American demogra
By Jonathan Martin
TM & © 2007 The Politico & Politico.com, a division of Allbritton Communications Company