Aside from the mayoral races in New York and Los Angeles, the gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey, and a scattered few special congressional elections, not much is going on politically this year. For the 20th century's most prolific political family, however, 2001 is not an off-year.

Here at home, Max Kennedy looks as though he is preparing a bid to succeed retiring US Representative Joe Moakley. Max's older brother, former US Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, continues to be mentioned as a gubernatorial candidate, despite his announcement that he will not run. Meanwhile, in Maryland, their sister Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is gearing up to run for governor.

The idea of a Kennedy running for office is anything but new. But the number of families following their lead these days is. Indeed, a new wave of candidates, albeit from less august dynasties, has emerged to follow their forebears into the political arena.

Given their number -- and the ways in which politics is evolving in their favor -- the nation may well be entering a new Golden Age of political aristocrats. Consider:

• In Pennsylvania, Auditor General Bob Casey Jr., the son and namesake of the late two-term governor, is angling to run for the governor's mansion.
• Fellow Pennsylvanian Bill Shuster, 40, a car dealer, in February won the Republican Party nomination to succeed his father, US Representative Bud Shuster.
• Former secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo, the son of Mario Cuomo and the husband of Max and Joe and Kathleen's sister Kerry Kennedy, is running for governor of New York, a job his father had for three terms.
• Los Angeles City Attorney Jim Hahn, the son of former city supervisor Kenneth Hahn, placed second in the crowded Los Angeles mayoral primary and is in the runoff for the June 5 election.
• US Representative John Sununu, namesake of the former New Hampshire governor, is being touted as a potential US Senate candidate to challenge a fellow Republican, the out-of-favor incumbent, Bob Smith.
• Of course, Massachusetts -- and the United States -- have always had political dynasties. The Adamses of Quincy produced two presidents, several congressmen, and assorted Cabinet secretaries. But most intergenerational political powerhouses peter out rapidly.

As recently as the mid-1990s, children of political families found it tough going. Jeb Bush, then a son and now also a brother of a president, lost his first attempt to become Florida governor in 1994. Jerry Brown, the former governor of California and the son of a governor of California, bombed in several 1990s comeback attempts before settling in as mayor of Oakland. Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III, son of the late vice president and US senator, suffered the supreme ignominy of losing the 1998 governor's race to erstwhile professional wrestler Jesse Ventura.

There are other failures, too, within the new wave of ''all in the family'' candidates. Witness the inability last November of US Representative Pat Danner, a four-term Missouri Democrat, to hand off her congressional seat to her son Steve.

But overall, the last few years have given political bonus babies more receptive audiences. And it's not just that the last presidential campaign was fought by two members of American political royalty.

US Representative Harold Ford Jr., 30, who inherited his father's Tennessee seat in 1996, gave the keynote address at last summer's Democratic National Convention. Last fall, political spouses Jean Carnahan and Hillary Rodham Clinton were elected in history-making US Senate races. Famous sons winning reelection included Ford's fellow congressmen Sununu and Democrats Ken Bentsen of Texas (son of the former US senator, vice presidential candidate, and Clinton Treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen), Mark Udall of Colorado (son of the former congressman and presidential candidate Morris Udall), and Tom Udall of New Mexico (son of the former Interior secretary Stuart Udall).

How well the current and expanding crop of ''all in the family'' candidates succeeds, of course, is not yet known. But as a group they have more going for them than their predecessors.

The evolving nature of politics is working in their favor. Given the fragmentation of the media and the declining attention span of the American voter, most people do not focus on campaigns until the last few weeks. As a result, unknown candidates often have difficulty building sufficient name recognition.

The increasingly dense media miasma generated by 24-hour cable channels and the Internet makes a recognizable political name even more important, and will continue to do so. In 1995, when Jesse Jackson Jr., 30, entered the special election to fill a congressional seat on Chicago's South Side, the longtime powerbase of his father, virtually every constituent knew the younger Jackson's name.

Indeed, politics these days is as much about branding and marketing as it is about policy. And in certain areas, political names are extremely effective brands, and that goes beyond the Kennedys in Massachusetts. Kenneth Hahn was a beloved liberal Democratic local politician in Los Angeles. (A city government building and a local state park are named after him.) So when his son Jim decided to run for mayor, he used television advertisements to emphasize the family ties -- even though he had already been elected Los Angeles city attorney four times.

Support among the African-American community, where his father was particularly popular, helped Hahn collect 25 percent of the total primary vote and vaulted him into the upcoming runoff.

Aside from purchasing expensive advertising, the best way to establish a political brand is to garner free media coverage. And as a rule, aristocratic politicians offer better human interest stories than their run-of-the-mill counterparts.

The media particularly love the story line of a son or daughter trying to avenge a parent's loss. George W. Bush's campaign was propelled, in part, by the story line of a faithful son seeking to unseat the team that had unceremoniously crushed his father, George H. W. Bush, in 1992. Just so, should Andrew Cuomo win the Democratic nomination for governor next year in New York, he would likely challenge the man who ended his father's government career in 1994, Governor George Pataki.

Members of political families often get catapulted to the top as more logical candidates are bypassed. When veteran Republican US Senator John Chafee died in 1999, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Almond appointed Chafee's son, Warwick Mayor Lincoln Chafee, to succeed him -- as per the venerable father's wishes.

In January, after winning reelection for a 15th term in his safely Republican western Pennsylvania, Bud Shuster decided to step down. (Shuster had been sanctioned by the House Ethics Committee and was about to lose his chairmanship of the House Transportation Committee.) But by waiting until after the election, he was able to ease the way for his son. Instead of holding an open primary, 133 local party officials gathered in February to choose their nominee for the special election to be held this month. Not surprisingly, Bill Shuster came in first among the field of 10.

When such behind-the-scenes maneuverings fail, there is always money. Aristocratic politicians are easily able to outraise their less-well-connected challengers. When George W. Bush ran for Congress in 1978, he used his mother's Christmas card list as a fund-raising vehicle. (It didn't help him, as it turned out.)

In New York, State Comptroller Carl McCall was, until recently, the runaway front-runner for the Democratic nomination for governor. McCall is the only African-American ever elected to statewide office in New York. He had laboriously lined up the endorsements of hundreds of state and local Democratic officials, and raised a multimillion-dollar war chest. Only a crank could challenge such a juggernaut. Or a political aristocrat.

Andrew Cuomo is justifiably confident of his ability to raise the millions necessary to compete. In one recent week, Ethel Kennedy hosted a fund-raiser at her Virginia estate for her son-in-law. The same night, Cuomo and wife Kerry attended a New York fund-raiser hosted by Hollywood aristocrats Billy Baldwin and Chynna Phillips. Then it was off to California, where he was slated to raise up to $2 million.

The fact that money and access make a difference in politics is not news. And aristocratic politics is a nonpartisan, equal-opportunity phenomenon. But the trend is nonetheless troubling. This is, after all, the most meritocratic of countries, where a poor child born in Hope, Ark., (Bill Clinton), or Johnson City, Texas, (Lyndon B. Johnson), or Yorba Linda, Calif., (Richard Nixon), can rise to become the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.

But if family politics continues to grow, it could undermine this fundamental promise. And the ways in which the powerful and connected use the system to perpetuate their own family power can be unseemly in a democratic nation.

Finally, there is ample reason to believe that genetics is not necessarily the best test for political leadership.