A candidate, or nominee, is the prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position; for example:
- to be elected to an office — in this case a candidate selection procedure occurs.
- to receive membership in a group
"Nomination" is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to an office by a political party, or the bestowing of an honor or award. This person is called a "nominee," though nominee often is used interchangeably with "candidate." "Presumptive nominee" is a term used when a person or organization believes that the nomination is inevitable. The act of being a candidate in a race for either a party nomination or for electoral office is called a "candidacy."
"Candidate" is a derivative of the Latin "candida" (white). In Ancient Rome, people running for political office would usually wear togas chalked and bleached to be bright white at speeches, debates, conventions, and other public functions.
Read more about Candidate: Candidates in Elections, Presumptive Nominee, Age of Candidacy
Famous quotes containing the word candidate:
“If we should swap a good library for a second-rate stump speech and not ask for boot, it would be thoroughly in tune with our hearts. For deep within each of us lies politics. It is our football, baseball, and tennis rolled into one. We enjoy it; we will hitch up and drive for miles in order to hear and applaud the vitriolic phrases of a candidate we have already reckoned we’ll vote against.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I have the greatest aversion to being a candidate on a ticket with a man whose record as an upright public man is to be in question—to be defended from the beginning to the end.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“We have fought too much rhetoric and red tape to be lulled and comforted by a paid political advertisement showing a candidate tossing his grandchild in the air while a disembodied voice espouses “family values” in the background.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)