When Jimmy Carter won the Democrat nomination for president in 1976, members of the press traveled to the family home in Plains, Ga., to meet some other members of his family.

Brother Billy Carter got most of the attention after he announced that he was "a real southern boy. " I got a red neck, white socks and Blue Ribbon beer. " Billy continued, "My mother went into the Peace Corps when she was 68. My sister is a motorcycle freak, my other sister is a Holy Roller evangelist and my brother is running for president. I'm the only sane one in the family."

Jimmy became president but when Billy ran for mayor of Plains, Ga., he was soundly defeated.

Why? He probably put up a lot of yard signs identifying himself as one of the crazy Carters. He should have identified himself only as "Billy" and in fact he did just that when he began to market his own brand of Billy Beer.

So it is interesting to note that two of the new candidates for the Edmonds City Council devoted the largest type on political yard signs to their first names.

They are ADRIENNE Fraley-Monillas and PRIYA Cloutier. Another female candidate in the finals departed from this political strategy.

Diane Buckshnis gives equal emphasis to both names on her yard cards but I think she had to drop a couple of vowels out of her last name to make it fit. Former council member Lora Petso had fewer yard signs than any other candidate. Yet she polled more votes than big-spending incumbent Ron Wambolt.

Neither of the male candidates who survived the primaries wrestled with the first-name, last-name dilemma, possibly because none of them is required or allowed to carry a maiden name through adult life.

Strom Peterson will be Buckshnis' opponent in November.

Priya Cloutier, who holds degrees in both law and engineering, is campaigning against realtor Michael Plunkett, whose yard signs emphasize his last name.

If the male incumbents lose, they could print some new yards signs advertising their own banjo band, "Strom and Plunkett, they would probably gather a lot of support on Bluegrass Night at Engels Pub, where red necks and white socks sometimes make a fashion statement.

You don't see much Blue Ribbon or Billy Beer on tap these days.

It has been all downhill for the Pabst Family, which closed its last brewery in 2001. Jimmy Carter's late brother made one public relations error in 1979 when he registered as a foreign agent and admitted accepting a $220,000 loan from the government of Libya.

That scandal became known in political circles as "Billygate."

Passionate and exemplary relatives can be extremely helpful in a political campaign.

I became convinced of that recently after a conversation with one superior court candidate's familial booster.

Her enthusiastic summation of his career was worth 500 yard signs but the candidate of her choice hadn't neglected that area of campaigning.

His signs read "RICO Tessandore for judge." with the emphasis on his first name. His listed supporters include some 50 politicians, jurists and cops, but no robbers, zero brewers and one ardent mother in law.