Sigh.
Maureen Dowd, bless her heart, also has reservations about the use of the word "weird", when there are SO MANY MORE SPECIFIC THINGS you can say about Trump, like "racist", "felon", and "seditionist".
So, this Extremely Intelligent Person wishes that Harris and Walz would just abandon what's obviously WORKING in favor of what DIDN'T WORK FOR NINE YEARS.
Because it's more important that Maureen not feel vicarious embarrassment than that Harris wins an election.
@mcfate A co-editor and I are at odds over the use of βKamala." She says women in politics are always referred to by their first names, men by their last, it's annoying. I'm like, that's true and it's a bad thing, but let's put her in the White House by whatever name works best right now, and THEN work on the sexist first/last names thing.
I call her "Harris". I'm not on a first-name basis with her.
@mcfate Fair enough. But I'm talking about marketing--what identifies a candidate memorably and sounds both serious and approachable? Eisenhower's people went with "Ike," Geraldine Ferraro's with her last name, Hillary Clinton's about half-and-half, IIRC. Both Obama's and Trump's people soft-pedal their first names.
"Kamala" is a great name -- more distinctive than "Harris," slightly unusual but easy to pronounce, perfect for marketing.
@mcfate Not even talking about Cheetolini's bizarre rant. I'm talking about prose style in stuff directed at folks who know the candidate by either or both names.
And sure, names are only part of the mix, but they count. I think it was Will Cuppy who joked that Eisenhower won because "I like Ike" made a better slogan than "I adore Adlai." It's a joke, but it points at a real factor in the election: getting voters to see Eisenhower as a regular guy, Stevenson as an egghead.
This is striking me as wildly facile.
No one EVER got "marketed" into a belief they weren't already leaning toward.
@ImagineThat
Okay, I'm talking about reality.
Trump sounds INSANE claiming no one knows Harris' last name.
No candidate ever won an election by having a good nickname, and I don't believe you can change my mind on that one.
I'm fairly confident that the majority of Americans are quite aware that "Kamala" and "Harris" are the same person.