“I think most people in elective office hide their affiliation with Harvard because it doesn’t make you popular. There’s a certain arrogance associated with Harvard people,” Tennessee Representative and Law School graduate Jim H. S. Cooper told The Crimson last year.

“If you have any political instinct at all, you know that,” added Cooper, who is widely known in the House as a fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrat.

But even liberal legislators in New England have reason to fear the perception of entitlement that comes with a Harvard diploma.

“The fashion is to tell a story of hardship overcome,” said U.S. Representative James A. Himes ’88, a Democrat who represents Connecticut’s fourth district. “[Harvard] is definitely an emblem of privilege, which has problems from an overtly political standpoint.”

Himes, whose district includes some of the wealthiest zip codes in the nation as well as several poorer areas, finds that he can mitigate the negative connotations of his Harvard degree by emphasizing his journey from the public school system to the Ivy League.

TACIT ACCEPTANCE

Longtime Representative Barnett “Barney” Frank ’61-’62, whose district included wealthy Boston suburbs for more than 30 years, took a different approach. While rarely emphasizing his years in Cambridge to voters, Frank has stayed close to the University.

“Barney is a rough-and-tumble kind of guy,” said Dan Payne, a Democratic strategist who spent years as an aide to Frank. “I’ve worked for Barney since 1980, and I cannot remember when we said the words ‘Harvard University.’ It just wasn’t in his narrative.”

Still, Frank spoke at Harvard’s Class Day ceremony last year, and in December, he told the Boston Globe that he hopes to teach at Harvard, eventually.

Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78, another double Harvard graduate, takes a similar tack. Still, Payne said that the degrees are an easier sell for Patrick, who grew up on the South Side of Chicago before coming to Massachusetts on a scholarship to Milton Academy, an elite prep school. Patrick’s image as a skilled orator connects with his Harvard degree without appearing elitist, Payne said.

“Some people are more obviously Harvard than others,” Payne said. “Deval Patrick is obviously more Harvard than Barney Frank.”

But even in districts far removed from the Crimson dynasties of Massachusetts—where 32 of the last 71 governors have held a Harvard degree—candidates can profit from quietly standing by a Harvard connection.

When Alexander “Anders” Blewett ’03 sought elected office in his native Montana, his opponent found an easy target in Blewett’s unusual profile. At the time, he was an ambitious, well-traveled lawyer with a Harvard degree who still lived in his parents’ basement.

“He accused me of being single, traveling to exotic countries, being an Ivy League graduate, and not owning property,” said Blewett, recalling a flyer that was mailed to thousands of his constituents when he ran for the Montana House of Representatives at the age of 27.

In spite of his opponents’ efforts to derisively brand him as an “Ivy-Leaguer,” Blewett said that his Harvard credentials might have actually helped him establish credibility and, eventually, win the seat.