While it is true that the Constitutional qualifications to hold congressional office are quite minimal, there are tried and true paths to the U.S. Capitol. House Members typically have been state legislators, and U.S. Senators have either been a House Member or fabulously wealthy, or both. These individuals not only have experience campaigning, but have already established a network of money and professional staff, and most importantly name identification. Yet despite this tried and true method of ascending to the Hill, there are plenty of people who made their way to Washington with little to no political experience. Consider the most recently defeated House Member from Florida’s 16th District. Congressman Tim Mahoney had never held elective office prior to becoming a Member of Congress. So how did he win? Quite simply, he was in the right place at the right time. Most seasoned Democrats had stayed away from the 2006 race against then-incumbent Mark Foley, largely because he seemed unbeatable. According to noted Congressional scholar (and my former professor) David Canon, that’s sort of a recipe for a political amateur to enter a race; when Foley was undone because of a salacious scandal involving young House Pages – there was Tim Mahoney ready to pick up the pieces and win. And yet despite his once amateur status, he was thought by many to be on his way to a decent House career (until, of course, he was derailed by his own sex scandal).
So beyond the top-two Democrats to enter the Senate race so far, in the last couple of weeks a few other names have popped into the picture. Tonight, for example, North Miami Mayor (population 60,000) Kevin Burns announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate race. With two other Miami-Dade pols in the race (and one more South Florida politician likely to enter), including an African American candidate (North Miami has a large Haitian population) in the race, there does not appear to be a natural constituency for Burns. But as it turns out, Burns is also openly-gay, and he and his long term partner have adopted a child (something that is not allowed under Florida law, but is under Vermont law where the adoption took place). It’s conceivable that this sort of identity politics may attract some voters (and probably lose some others too), but it’s unlikely that the traditional indicia of a winning candidate would be swamped by sexual orientation. While there are no openly gay members in the Senate, there are certainly openly gay members in the House – and plenty of voters who largely suspect, but do not really care, that their member may be gay. It just does not seem to be much of a factor, when compared with the much more meaningful issues surrounding ideology compatibility, positions on key issues or valence points, and messaging.
Burns is not exactly a pure amateur. It's true that Burns is finishing up his second term as a mayor; but that's fairly thin political experience for a 10 media market state. As more candidates enter the race, the odds that the GLBT constituency pushes his candidacy forward increases - but the odds that it will be Burns who will be in the right place at the right time decreases.
