Meaning
A politician favored above all by their own people: originally a candidate put up by a home-state delegation at a national party convention, usually with no realistic chance of the nomination, so the state's bosses could hold votes in reserve and bargain on later ballots. Loosely now, any notable who is idolized in the hometown that raised them. In the strict sense a favorite son is a tactic, not a frontrunner; do not confuse with a dark horse, already catalogued here, who emerges as a genuine compromise winner. The diluted hometown-hero sense now dominates general prose. British texts spell it favourite son. Regional use: United States origin; by extension other presidential systems.
Origin
The phrase itself is old: the OED's earliest evidence, from 1739, carries the general favored-man sense; the political sense is dated 1788 by Merriam-Webster and about 1780 by Ammer's American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, and H. L. Mencken, in The American Language, traced the earliest known American occurrence to an ode addressed to George Washington on his 1789 visit to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, adding that the term 'did not acquire its present ironical sense until it was applied to Martin Van Buren'. As a convention stratagem it was widely used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Wikipedia): a delegation parked its first-ballot votes with a hometown son and traded them for platform deals or a vice-presidential slot. The gambit faded as binding primaries killed off brokered conventions, with early-1970s rule changes requiring nominations from more than one state. The dictionaries disagree on first use, so the dates are reported rather than reconciled.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- favorite daughter
- favorite-son candidacy
- favourite son
Usage Examples
- Ohio fielded a favorite son at the convention, holding its votes in reserve while the real bargaining went on in the hotel suites.
- He was Iowa's favorite son on the first ballot, then released his delegates and took the vice-presidential slot.
- The quarterback is the state's favorite son; they named a highway and two barbecue joints after him.