In 1992, Eddie Murphy starred in a film titled The Distinguished Gentleman.
While the movie made over $40 million at the box office, it was not well received critically, nor has it enjoyed any sort of cult renaissance since. Rotten Tomatoes has it currently pegged at a 13 percent on the Tomatometer.
Tepid farce though the film is, The Distinguished Gentleman imagines a political deceit that could plausibly be executed in the District 7 race for the U.S. House of Representatives. For purposes of this post we will call this the “Eddie Murphy Scenario.”
In the movie, Murphy plays a con artist named Thomas Jefferson Johnson, which happens to also be the name of his congressional district’s long time representative. When Rep. Johnson dies, con man Johnson runs for the seat and wins on name recognition alone.
The movie gets to the huge importance incumbency and name recognition in electoral politics. If voters know who you are, they’re more likely to vote for you.
Which brings us to District 7, soon to be vacated by long-time Rep. Jim McDermott. It’s long been a fool’s errand to even challenge McDermott for the seat, as he regularly pulls in more than 70 percent of the vote.
In other words, were Jim McDermott to run again in District 7, his name alone would deliver a significant number of votes.
Enter the Eddie Murphy Scenario.
As the Seattle Times reported, one of those considering a run for the open seat is King County Councilmember Joe McDermott, who is not related to Jim. As the Times also reported, but did not adequately explore, Joe McDermott’s full name is James Joseph McDermott. Jim, of course, is short for James. Therefore, Joe McDermott could reasonably run for Jim McDermott’s seat as Jim McDermott, achieving the Eddie Murphy Scenario.
No doubt this thought has crossed Joe McDermott’s mind, but we couldn’t find any record of him addressing it. So we reached Joe McDermott this week to ask him a series of questions. It went something like this:
Have you seen the Eddie Murphy movie
The Distinguished Gentleman
?
“I think I saw a very long time ago.”
In it, Eddie Murphy has the same name as a the Congressman he’s running to replace.
“I’m Joe McDermott. If I decide to run, I will run on my record as Joe McDermott.”
Have you seen The Distinguished Gentleman?
“I’m no Eddie Murphy.”
Unsatisfied with McDermott’s refusal to play out the plot of a 1992 comedy, we called George Lovell, chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Washington, to discuss the Eddie Murphy Scenario as it applies to the McDermotts. It went something like this:
Have you seen The Distinguished Gentleman?
“It sounds vaguely familiar.”
It wasn’t well received.
“That was sort of a fallow period of Eddie Murphy’s career.”
Could the Eddie Murphy Scenario work?
“I’m a social scientist, so I’m going to say it depends. It might be plausible in something like a lower level judge race, where people are low information voters, even people who pay attention to this stuff, and a name might catch people’s eyes.”
What about in District 7?
“In this scenario, it’s an important enough race and enough money will be spent on it that people will know who’s running.”
So Joe should run as Jim McDermott?
“Joe has a fair amount of name recognition and is doing a good job to have a lot of visibility with voters. It doesn’t seem like it will work here.”
So, sorry Eddie. Seattle’s just not ready for your vision.
dperson@seattleweekly.com
