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A comparison I haven't seen posed: Kamala vs Hillary. I think the comparison points to a Donald victory. Since he beat Hillary, he'll beat Kamala. (Meta: why is it that Trump is rarely referred to by first name?)
Hillary has the stronger resume: U.S. senator (2001–09) and secretary of state (2009–13) for Obama. Compare to Kamala: attorney general of California (2011–17), U.S. Senate (2017–21), VP (21-). Or, maybe it's a tie, if you're somehow impressed by her time as VP.
Criticism of Hillary's demeanor is around being elitist and robotic, which beats Harris's positionless word salad.
Trump 2016 was much scarier: as a total unknown, it was at least a little more credible he'd do, uh, much more than be in office while three Supreme Court judges died.
Virtually all presidential candidates are referred to by their last name (Gore v Bush, McCain/Romney v Obama, Biden v Trump). The outliers recently have been the two female democratic nominies, and while I have seen sexism suggested as a motive, as far as I am aware the first-name designation came from the campaigns themselves. "Hillary" was the obvious one, becuae "Clinton" would be associated with a former president who might have pissed off the sorts of demographics Democrats needed to win- ie NAFTA and the unions, that sort of thing. "Kamala" seems to be more of an affectionate branding designed to emphasize her non-whiteness, but most of her campaign signs that I've seen do read Harris/Walz.
Also "Jeb!", presumably for reasons similar to HRC.
Ahaha, hooo man, I forgot about that one. Has there ever been a less appropriate exclamation point?
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Trump has been a brand for decades that has been plastered on buildings, steaks, planes, bottled water, casinos, vokda, perfume, sneakers, and more.
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Ummm... I would guess maybe it's because his last name is more distinctive, he is "the" Trump that people would immediately think of if you said "Trump", while Harris is a fairly common name, and Clinton could refer to either Bill or Hillary.
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Only Ginsburg died while he was in office. Scalia died under Obama. Kennedy retired and is still alive; Trump appointed Kennedy's former clerks Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
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I’ve thought about that too. Referring to people by their first names invites a sense of closeness and familiarity, maybe makes them appear more approachable or likable even. So it could be strategic on the part of ‘Kamala’ supporters. Alternatively, the name ‘Kamala’ is more unique and memorable for most people than ‘Harris’ as a way to identify her—many Harrises but only one Kamala. A few politicians also are commonly referred to by their first names: Lula (da Silva) by is an example. I don’t think gender has much to do with it.
Also Obama was pretty common.
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More identifiable name is the whole of it. Donald could be anyone (Sutherland, Rumsfeld, Duck), while if you say Trump, it could only be one man. So "Trump" is a more useful signifier when bringing up a topic involving him, which makes that use habitual. The same goes for Kamala vs Harris.
You see this all the time in sports. Patrick Mahomes is always "Mahomes", while Lamar Jackson is "Lamar".
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No it doesn’t. Hillary seemed like a bitch on a personal level, whereas Harris seems like a wine aunt with a xanax problem elevated beyond her station in life, which is fundamentally more sympathetic.
People (including many people who were not on the hard right, like average New Yorkers) hated Hillary, or at least saw her as a megalomaniacal, power hungry social climber willing to do anything (even eg humiliate herself during Bill’s affairs) to advance her own ambitions.
Nobody seems to really hate Kamala; they may think she’s stupid or incompetent or a standard “woke” Democrat, but she isn’t personally repulsive in a way that the average politician isn’t, but in which Hillary was.
"Last enemy wasn't so bad now that we have current enemy" seems like a pattern on both sides.
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Yes they do. There are many people who hate Kamala. None of them would have voted for Biden or a Clinton instead but plenty of them weren't utter nutjobs about, well, at least about Biden.
More specifically, there are lots of fairly sane conservatives who have serious concerns about Kamala's understanding of constitutional rights as they apply to her opponents where they mostly don't about Biden.
What does this mean? What constitutional rights does Kamala not understand?
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I think Kamala is every bit as bad and dangerous as Hillary, but for different reasons. Kamala comes off as desperately insecure and thin-skinned, as though she’s terrified at every moment of being found out as a fraud.
Say what you will about Hillary Clinton, but she knows how intelligent she is, and has a clear plan to utilize that intelligence. Kamala seems like she’s only pleasant until the second someone corrects her, or pushes back on her, and then she’ll do anything in her power to tear that person down in order to protect her ego. The classic crybully given more power than she’s capable of wielding. “Excuse me, I’m speaking now!” As if she has been victimized by being challenged.
When you're wrong and know being correct is beyond your capability, evolutionary biology mandates you treat challenge and victimization as the same thing.
All politics (and the divisions therein) are merely downstream of that.
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I’ve always thought that “at least he isn’t X” as a particularly good long term strategy. It marginally works when neither candidate is exciting their base well, and the Not-X candidate is at least a competent seeming middle of the road person who will do nothing more than keep going down the path. But if not, then it’s really more of a choice between X but he’s doing thing people like, or Not-X and incompetent.
There’s really nothing in the Kamala campaign that’s telling us she wants to do anything as president. When she makes her campaign stops, she’s talking about how scary and weird the other guys are. Well, after the concert anyway. But after nearly ten years of “he’s terrible, horrible, they’re evil” and him doing very little of evil, terrible, horrible things, it’s not landing anymore. Outside of the breathless true believers, nobody thinks Trump is evil. And now that this is gone, what’s left to scare people to the polls to vote Kamala? They don’t hate her, but what is there, besides the rapidly failing “Orange Man Bad” meme is there to get people to actually choose to stand in line for an hour for Kamala?
Trump had a serious effect on border policies and overturned roe. To voters who are very concerned about republicans implementing a republican agenda that isn't just tax cuts, these things are a big deal.
Now I doubt that progressive culture warriors are a majority of the electorate. But the idea that making an orange man bad pitch to these people is without basis is itself without basis.
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Conversely, if Kamala wins, does that mean you underestimated the power of Orange Man Bad?
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Politicians tend to get referred to by their catchiest non-ambiguous name.
"Trump" is much less common than "Donald" as a name. "Hillary" is common but "Clinton" becomes ambiguous with bill. "Walz" is less common than "Tim." "Kamala" is less common than "Harris." "Biden" is less common than "Joe." "Vance" and "J.D." are both uncommon, but "Vance" is more iconic. I admit I don't know why we got "obama" instead of "barack.
I think if both names are memorable it will default to the last name, but there aren't a lot of other immediate examples. Going back in history there are a couple of other outliers though. Eisenhower was often referred to as Ike, by the public and his campaign itself. John F Kennedy was JFK, and his brother RFK. Ted Kennedy was always "Ted Kennedy", the whole name. Johnson was LBJ, both following along from his predecessor and having a very common last name. Its possible there were more of these pre-WWI but we've forgotten collectively about them.
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Because Obama’s first presidential run started in 2007 and 2008 when there was still a lot of residual War on Terror fear and suspicion of Muslims. “Obama” sounds African, “Barack” sounds suspiciously Middle Eastern.
"Obama" and "Osama" sounded pretty similar to me the first time I heard about the former.
The latter, of course, was one of the most famous Middle Easterners especially at the time.
I'm surprised the conversation has gotten this far without anyone bringing up that his middle name is "Hussein." As in, the same name as Saddam Hussein, who was overthrown by the US at the beginning of the war in Iraq.
America elected a man named "Barack Hussein
OsamaObama" in 2008. This is like France electing a man named "Hans Goering Hetler" in 1953. I don't have a problem with Obama's name, but I find it genuinely hilarious he managed to win the presidency at the time that he did with the name that he has.More options
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Or Japanese.
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FWIW prior to Obama’s presidential campaign, probably the best-known “Barack” (by American English pronunciation, not spelling) was Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel and Labor Party leader. He is indeed Middle Eastern, but seeing as he’s an Israeli Jew, I would hardly say “suspiciously” so.
Barack is not a commonly used first or last name for Israeli Jews. It’s primarily an Arab name. The former prime minister’s family name was the Lithuanian “Brog” and when the family Hebrewized that name it came out as Barak.
A case of Brog assimilation, so to speak
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Obama was also a relatively young guy with relatively little experience, whose campaign image was serious and professional rather than folksy and relatable. In that context, going by one's surname fits better.
Good point! That suggests another axis, actually-- whether politicians needed to look friendlier or more professional. People hated Hillary on a personal level so she needed to look friendlier. Trump needed to look respectable. Vance is a relatively young guy, so the desire for respectability makes sense. Though that theory sort of breaks down for Walz (who's deliberately trying to make himself look like an extra normal midwestern dude) and Biden (who had a lot of "Joe" related nicknames, e.g. "diamond joe," "sleepy joe," but also biden-related nicknames -- "brandon"/"dark brandon.")
Walz is running as a more down-to-earth and male accessory to Kamala, so he is fitting the role the campaign needs to balance out her flaws with that. I'm curious as to whether his run for governor of Minnesota had lots of 'coach Walz' type messaging.
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I think "Obama" is a lot more fun to say. Don't underestimate that part of it, you gotta weave the word into a whole bunch of phrases that have to sound good enough to say on TV, to your friends and pretty much any conversation setting, having a hard to pronounce name is a hindrance.
This is why people with long or hard to pronounce names that stick around get acronyms. Nobody wants to say Fitzgerald, and John and Kennedy are too unspecific, so he's JFK.
And sometimes you transcend the banality of your first name through annoying orthography: T. J. Kaczynski (better known for other work) is "Ted". Because who can remember czy in the right order?
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