What's in a name? ... or, how much does it matter (Obama and others)

[karlrschneider]

I was chatting with an acquaintance this afternoon about presidential hopefuls. He mentioned "that little short guy named 'ka-tinny' (my phonetic translation of his pronunciation) and said "That's not
even an American name."

So I asked him "I imagine you mean Dennis Kucinich, but what exactly is an American name?"...he replied, "well, you know...an English name"

"So are only English people Americans?" I asked him. "Well, no, I mean their NAMES"

I said "Bush picked Alberto Gonzalez for our Attorney General...what do you think about that?"

He did not believe me. I shit you not. I said "Look it up! And what about the Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia?...is that an English name?"

Okay, you have the picture...this guy is just another dumb idiot Okie who doesn't even know, as it turned out, the names of his own two Senators. He got a somewhat panicked and stricken look on his
face after I asked him that and did't say anything for a minute or so, then I said "What about Barack Obama, do you have any opinion of him?"

"WHO?" he replied.

That's when I gave up, said "Well, see ya" and walked away.

All of which doesn't mean much except to reinforce my opinion that there are a lot of shallow people
who don't know or care anything beyond a name. It isn't universal, obviously, since Schwartzenegger
(see, I can't even spell it) and Jesse Ventura managed to get elected, but it does seem to me that in general, an 'odd' name isn't a big help electorially. At least on a national level. I suspect
Ferraro and Dukakis lost some votes by virtue of their surnames as well.

edit for a typo

[depakid]

1. "That's when I gave up"

LOL.

A wise choice.

Could it be that's why Clark won the Oklahoma primary? ;-)

[Ignacio Upton]

2. OMG, you can't vote for Barack Hussein Obama/Osama!!!!111

Otherwise the terra'ists win!!!!1111

[illinoisprogressive]

3. Many people are not at all interested in politics or current events. They don't care