In the early stages of her run for governor, Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend seemed reluctant to remind voters of her family roots.
Sure, campaign trail introductions frequently included mention of the Kennedy tradition, yet the candidate rarely -- if ever -- talked about her father, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, or her two uncles, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
It's not that she was hiding anything, but the family's Massachusetts-based tradition of wealth and political power seemed to be played down as her Republican challenger sought to define himself as a man of Arbutus.
These days, that reluctance seems to have disappeared.
Whether she is talking about unions, gun control, drug treatment or Israel, the lieutenant governor is regularly including references to her family.
"If you add all the years that John Kennedy was in public life, and Robert Kennedy was in public life, and Ted Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy, Joe Kennedy, Mark Shriver, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend ... I think we'd have a century of Kennedys fighting for labor," Townsend told an enthusiastic crowd of steelworkers yesterday.
To Jewish voters, she reminded them during two weekend candidate forums at Montgomery County synagogues that her father was "killed by a Palestinian terrorist because of his views on Israel."
And the sniper shootings in the Washington region have prompted Townsend to repeatedly talk about her late father and the pain of losing family members to gun violence.
Townsend and Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. have said they are trying to avoid politicizing the shootings, though Townsend has emphasized the differences in their gun control records in recent speeches and a new Washington-area television advertisement.
"I've known the pain of losing a member of my family to gun violence," Townsend said. "The gun issue has come up, and when the congressman accuses me of being political, I say that it's not political, it's personal."
For Maryland Democrats, the new emphasis on Townsend's Kennedy family roots comes as a welcome relief.
"People were calling us to say that she needs to talk about her father, Bobby, more often, and these were Democrats who love her," said David Paulson, spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party. "They wanted more of that, and now they've got it. We don't get those calls anymore."
