Favorite Son

A favorite son (or favorite daughter) candidate is not usually a serious candidate for political office. In presidential politics, the favorite son generally is a candidate who hopes to hold his state's delegation together to make it a bargaining bloc at the national party convention.

In the age of the primary, which has dramatically diminished the role of the nominating convention, the favorite son is almost an anachronism. The term was much more common in the era of brokered conventions, where favorite sons diluted the strength of the leading candidates, enabling party bosses to negotiate deals.

Brokered conventions were more likely in the Democratic Party before 1936 because the old two-thirds rule often necessitated numerous ballots until a candidate obtained the two-thirds majority vote required for nomination. Republican nominations have always been made by a simple majority.

Presidential selection reforms have made brokered conventions and favorite son candidacies unlikely but not impossible. Since 1972 the Democrats have required names placed in nomination to have the written support of at least fifty delegates from three or more states, with no more than twenty signatures from any one delegation.

By rule or practice, the parties have also limited the number and length of seconding speeches for nominations. A primary aim of conventions today is to hold the huge television viewing audience, and one of the surest ways to lose it is to allow boring, long-winded oratory in support of favorite sons to go unchecked.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution saw the favorite son concept as basic to the presidential nominating and electing system. They expected that the states would put forth their most qualified candidates as favorite sons, and that the wise and learned electoral college members would choose the two best candidates, with the winner becoming president and the second-place finisher becoming vice president.

But with adoption of the Twelfth Amendment, requiring separate balloting for president and vice president, and with the trend toward popular election of electors rather than appointment by state legislatures, the role of favorite son changed. Instead of creating a pool of likely presidents, it became more of an honorary position with some potential for influencing the final outcome of the nominating process.