Parachute candidate

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A parachute candidate, also known as a “carpetbagger” in the United States, is a pejorative term for an election candidate who does not live in and has little connection to the area he or she is running to represent. The allegation is thus that the candidate is being “parachuted in” for the job by a desperate political party that has no reliable talent indigenous to the district or state or that the party (or the candidate himself/herself) wishes to give a candidate an easier election than would happen in one's own home area. For example, in a 2000 race for U.S. Senator in New York, Democrat Hillary Clinton was accused of carpetbagging New York. Similarly, in the 2004 Illinois Senate race, Alan Keyes of Maryland ran on the Republican ticket with similar accusations.