In a Pentecostal church in Dallas, Texas, Al Gore took time out from discussing the Middle East and taxation to declare: "The centre of my life is faith and family."
While the Democratic candidate was stressing to the congregation the importance of family values this weekend, television viewers saw a new Republican campaign ad featuring the nephew of his rival.
"I am a young Latino and I'm very proud of my bloodline," the 24-year-old law student said. "I have an uncle that is running for president . . . His name? The same as mine - George Bush."
The dynastic quality of the campaign came to the fore at the party conventions this summer. Members of the Bush and Gore clans gave prime-time platform speeches about the candidate as a husband, son, dad, while senior members of both parties were kept on the sidelines.
"Welcome to the next president of America and a fine dad," gushed Karenna Gore Schiff, Al's telegenic eldest daughter and the head of Gorenet, an outreach programme for young Democrats.
The use of family members is not new in presidential politics. It is simply that this year's campaign has given them all more prominent roles.
Marshall Whittman of the Hudson Institute, a non-partisan public policy think-tank, argues that this is both a reaction to the Clinton administration's scandals and the current state of the American psyche. "America is economically prosperous but there is a fear that there is a values deficit," he said. Others believe that this year's campaign is simply a feature of the "Oprahfication" of US politics, which started with America's best-known political family: the Kennedys.
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