“When I’m knocking on doors talking to people, I never mention it,” he said. Heroux said he also does not mention his degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the London School of Economics.
“I’m also not running on the fact that I worked in a prison or that I’ve worked as a teacher. What I’m running on are the issues. So having that [degree] on my resume is nice, but it isn’t one of my talking points,” Heroux said.
A spokeswoman for Congressman Lynch, who also received a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School, declined to comment for this article.
FINDING THE POSITIVES
Scott N. Howell, a Democrat challenging Republican Senator Orrin Hatch in the Utah Senate race, said he is upfront about his Harvard experience.
Howell completed Harvard Business School’s Executive Education program in 2003 with a grant from his employer, IBM.
He also served on the Kennedy School’s Harvard Policy Group.
“We actually highlighted it [on the campaign trail],” Howell said of his Harvard connections, “because I think that the experience I had there was really relevant about the unification process of what government could be, should be, what it is, and what it isn’t.”
If anything, Howell said, he has encountered more positive than negative reactions to his time at Harvard.
“The stigma’s actually been positive,” he said. “Educated voters appreciate it. Sometimes people might look at you and say, ‘you think you’re better than us,’ but to be honest I haven’t really encountered that.”
Sean Bielat, another Massachusetts Republican who is challenging Joseph Kennedy in the Massachusetts’ 4th District, has also found a place for Harvard in his campaign. “I don’t de-emphasize Harvard,” he said.
Instead, Bielat said he looks to stress how he ended up at Harvard—through hard work and scholarship funding from the GI Bill—a message he believes has a positive impact on voters. “I don’t necessarily come from a family where it was a big tradition to go an Ivy League School,” he said.
A QUEST FOR CREDIBILITY
Despite Selvaggi’s tendency to keep his Harvard degree “close to the vest,” he said that he has found that a connection to Harvard gives him credibility among some voters. “People assume [that] if you’ve been vetted by Harvard you must not be a dope,” he said.
In fact, Selvaggi said that he was motivated to enroll at the Kennedy School in part to get experience in the political sphere and bolster his legitimacy as a candidate.
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