Parachute candidate
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A parachute candidate, also known as a “carpetbagger” in the United States, is a pejorative term[1] for an election candidate who does not live in and has little connection to the area he or she is running to represent. The allegation is thus that the candidate is being “parachuted in” for the job by a desperate political party that has no reliable talent indigenous to the district or state or that the party (or the candidate himself/herself) wishes to give a candidate an easier election than would happen in one's own home area.
Examples
United States
U.S. Senate
- Former U.S. Senator Scott Brown ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for U.S. Senate in 2014 in New Hampshire, despite having previously represented the more liberal Massachusetts in the Senate as recently as 2 years prior.
- Former First Lady of Arkansas Hillary Clinton ran successfully for U.S. Senate in New York in 2000 as a Democrat.
- Former Reagan administration diplomat Alan Keyes, a resident of Maryland, ran unsuccessfully as a Republican during the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate election.[2]
U.S. House of Representatives
Canada
United Kingdom
- Douglas Carswell MP defected to the UK Independence Party, in turn displacing the existing UKIP candidate in his constituency of Clacton. Given Carswell was living in London at the time, he was accused carpetbagging by the former UKIP candidate.[5]
See also
- List of democracy and elections-related topics
References