Here is a truly crazy story ahead of the Feb. 27 GOP primary for the April special election in Arizona’s reliably red 8th Congressional District. Republican Bob Stump, a former member of the state’s Corporation Commission, is one of the leading candidates to succeed disgraced former Rep. Trent Franks (whose resignation prompted the special election), and it just so happens that he shares a name with ... the late Rep. Bob Stump. The former commissioner's birth name is actually Christopher Robert Stump, though, and he's not related to the former congressman.
But one person is very unhappy about this seeming coincidence: Nancy Stump, the widow of the deceased Bob Stump, who issued a statement on Monday calling on candidate Stump to "publicly acknowledge that he is not related to our family and stop this charade,” and adding, “The voters deserve to know the truth."
What truth is that, exactly? The Arizona Republic's Ronald Hansen recently took a look at the two Bob Stumps, who were rather different figures. The former congressman was elected as a Democrat in 1976 to a seat that included much of the Phoenix area, joined the GOP in 1982, and died in 2003, just months after retiring from the House. The current candidate, by contrast, only became “Bob” Stump this century: He went by “Chris” in the 1990s, and when he wrote for the conservative Weekly Standard, he used the byline “Christopher Stump.” But when he first ran for the legislature in 2002 (the same year the congressman retired), he did so as "Bob Stump."
The younger Stump told Hansen that his father, who was also named Bob Stump, wanted to pass along the name to him, but gave him Robert as a middle name because he didn't want his son to get dubbed “Junior.” The candidate says that when his father contracted Alzheimer's disease, "one of the only names he remembered was my name and his," so his decision to go by "Bob Stump" was a tribute to his dad. He also argues that he's been in office long enough under the name Bob Stump that voters should know who he is. However, Nancy Stump obviously disagrees, but it’s unlikely that candidate Stump plans to heed her wishes.
Believe it or not, this isn't the first time we've written about a situation like this. Back in 2015 in Louisiana, a candidate for Jefferson Parish president named Elton Lagasse ran ads charging that his opponent, Mike Yenni, had switched his last name from Maunoir to his mother's maiden name of Yenni for political reasons: His grandfather, Joe Yenni, had served as parish president in the 1980s, and the candidate's late uncle, Michael J. Yenni, succeeded him. Lagasse's ads featured the widow of Michael J. Yenni (that's the uncle) arguing that her son—who is also named Michael Yenni—was the real Mike Yenni, while the guy running for office wasn't. The fuss didn’t seem to get voters worked up, though, as Yenni beat Lagasse 52-37. An unrelated scandal has since made Yenni toxic, however, so perhaps he’s contemplating another name change.
Monday, Jan 29, 2018 · 9:27:18 PM +00:00
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Jeff Singer
Indeed, candidate Bob Stump soon released a statement from his mother, Jane Stump. Jane Stump pushed back on Nancy Stump's assertion that the congressman was the only Bob Stump, saying, "My late husband was also named Bob Stump, as was my husband's father. My husband and I had every right to name our son after him." She also argued that, despite what Nancy Stump had said, candidate Bob Stump had never suggested that he was related to the congressman, and "[t]o imply that a name is somehow the property of one family is the height of arrogance." Jane Stump also suggested that Nancy Stump's statement was just an attempt to hurt her son at the polls days before early voting was set to start.