Even Insider Candidates Seek 'Outsider' Label

Experienced candidates are positioning themselves as anti-politicians.

ByABC News
June 11, 2010, 10:10 AM

June 13, 2010 -- They are members of Congress, state lawmakers and former politicians. But in a year when an anti-incumbent sentiment has defined the political landscape, all of them are running as outsiders.Simmering anger over the direction the nation is heading — along with low approval ratings for Congress — have led candidates this year to position themselves as anti-politicians, even though many have résumés fattened with public service work.

Indiana Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth, a Democrat, plays up his time as a county sheriff on his website — he includes a badge in his campaign logo — but describes his four years in the House as "brief." Florida Republican Marco Rubio derides the "political class" in his Senate bid, but has spent most of his career in the public sector, including eight years as a state lawmaker.

" 'Outsider' is always a relative term," said Scott McLean, a political scientist at Quinnipiac University. "Outside of what?"

Voters say they are nearly twice as likely to support a fresh face for Congress rather than someone who has been elected before, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll in May. The discontent has been reflected at the polls as several incumbents, including Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., lost primary elections this year.

The wave of anti-incumbency has left candidates such as New Hampshire Democrat Paul Hodes in a tough spot. Hodes, a two-term member of the House who is running for Senate, told MSNBC earlier this year, "I've been in Washington long enough to see what's broken, but not long enough to be contaminated."

Campaign spokesman Matt House said Hodes will be the candidate to "stand up to business as usual in Washington.".

Rubio has been celebrated by the anti-tax "Tea Party" movement for shaking up the Florida Senate race, pushing Gov. Charlie Crist to leave the GOP and run for the seat as an independent. Campaign spokesman Alex Burgos said Rubio isn't hiding from his time in the Florida Legislature.

"Whatever you want to refer to him as, he's ultimately running on some very core beliefs," Burgos said.

Ellsworth's campaign noted that Republican opponent Dan Coats served in the Senate a decade ago and worked as a lobbyist. "We'll gladly stack Brad's 25 years in the sheriff's office ... against Dan Coats' 30-year history as a Washington insider," said campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Farrar.

Jennifer Duffy, an editor with the non-partisan Cook Political Report, said there are degrees of an "outsider" candidacy that can make it more or less attractive to voters. "I think the people who call themselves the 'outsiders' — the ones who are successful are the ones who really don't have any Washington background."

Other candidates scrambling to claim the outsider mantle:

• J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging Sen. John McCain for the Republican Senate nomination in Arizona, has run as the anti-establishment choice despite serving in the House from 1995 to 2007. McCain is running a television ad this week questioning Hayworth's outsider credibility.

• Democratic Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet has tried to distance himself from Congress as he runs for re-election. "I've been in Washington for only a year," he says in his first television ad. "But it didn't take that long to see the whole place is broken."