For Duncan, All the Family's In

Wife, Kids, Siblings -- And Even Mom -- Join RV Tour of Md.

As the 38-foot camper emblazoned with billboard-size campaign banners trundled past granaries and cornfields on Maryland's Eastern Shore yesterday, Barbara Duncan sat in one of the RV's captain's chairs, doubled over in hysterics.

She and her 13-year-old daughter, Conor, had a laptop open and were scrolling through the family Web log, which was launched last week when Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) formally began campaigning for governor.

The site, http://www.duncansfordoug.com , was supposed to be an outlet for Duncan's expansive family -- his 12 brothers and sisters, five children and 38 nieces and nephews -- to share their thoughts and reflections about the campaign they all were embarking upon together. It turns out, it also was fast becoming a forum for some good-natured family ribbing.

From Duncan's formal announcement in Rockville on Thursday, the site reports dryly, "Here's a picture of Doug's siblings walking out of the house just before Doug's speech." Pictured instead is a lineup of sumo wrestlers in traditional garb, stomachs bulging.

Duncan has always joked that his family was so large that his modest, four-bedroom boyhood home made up its own political precinct. But for the first time since he ran for Rockville City Council 23 years ago, Duncan intends his family to be an integral part of his campaign.

"They've been involved in the past, but not this way," he said.

When Duncan embarked on a 1,350-mile driving tour through Maryland's 23 counties and Baltimore last week, the caravan at times felt more like a family road trip than a campaign, with Barbara and Conor in the RV and Duncan's sons, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and 79-year-old mother, Ellie Duncan, following behind.

They trailed the candidate from Rockville to Hyattsville to Baltimore to Annapolis, creating cameos for themselves during his stump speech. When he would describe the modest house "where a couch sometimes doubled as a bed," his sister Eleanor M. Lide of Rockville would shout out, "One bathroom!"

When speaking to 700 teachers at their union convention in Ocean City, he emphasized his father's work as a language instructor. Over crab cakes with party central committee members at Snapper's Waterfront Cafe in Cambridge, he found a pointed way to invoke his family and take a jab at Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), an only child, who has had a penchant for heated partisan battles with the state's Democratic legislature.

"When you grow up with 12 brothers and sisters and you try to go it alone, and pick fights, you learn fast you're never going to make it," Duncan said. "You learn how to bring people together."

Duncan said it's all part of introducing himself to Maryland. "I didn't need to do this in Rockville, or really in Montgomery County, because everybody knew us."

But there are clear political motives, too. Duncan's advisers believe his humble origins present an antidote to that political albatross that is Montgomery County -- a place viewed by much of the state as elitist, wealthy and more psychicallyaligned with Washington than with any part of Maryland.