A rare cross-party attack on Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an is turning a family scandal into a warning about his national ambitions — bad news for the mayor and his party.

• Chiang's eldest son won a city-funded exchange student spot, and the backlash has not died down.
• Wang Ping-chung, a pro-unification New Party youth leader normally on the same side, said a rich and powerful family should not be taking public money.
• He warned that blind cheerleading from party loyalists and casting the family as victims only deepens ordinary people's sense of unfairness.
• Wang also revealed the son told a newspaper he is open to a political career, fueling talk of a dynasty being groomed.
• The advice: get back to running the city and stop building an idol image, or repeat Han Kuo-yu's rise-and-fall.

Outlook: The scholarship has been given up, but the questions about Chiang's ambitions beyond Taipei will keep running.