Are generic and familiar names more appealing to you? (on political candidates)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Continuing in a way from this thread:

In the Eddie Murphy movie** The Distinguished Gentleman**, Jeff Johnson wins office by evoking the name of another Jeff Johnson.

Further, I notice that US politics is rather dynastic, though perhaps less so than India’s or Pakistan’s.

Connie Mack’s grandson and great-grandson won office using his name for themselves.

There was a congressman Marion Berry and a mayor Marion Barry, both evoking the marionberry.

Present Congressman Joe Walsh is not the guitarist Joe Walsh.

Do you prefer to vote for names that are reassuringly familiar somehow? Do people you know? Do people in your district?

Or is it offensive to you that someone thinks you’ll vote for Bob A. Smith out of confusion with Rob G. Smith?

2

I couldn’t careless about their names. Name shouldn’t affect how you vote unless there’s an evidential reason linked to the name.

3

Having a common or famous name can work against a candidate. When Jim Ryan lost the 2002 Illinois Governor election to Rod Blagojevich, there was some evidence that he was at a disadvantage because people were confusing him with disgraced (and now jailed) governor George Ryan (no relation).
Personally, I don’t care one way or the other what kind of name a candidate has (unless I have some unconscious bias I’m not aware of).

And I am encouraged by the fact that someone with as exotic a name as “Barack Hussein Obama” could be elected POTUS.

4

I was about to cite these guys as evidence that I don’t think name really matters as a significant factor. Not in Illinois, anyway.

I don’t care much what my politicians are named.

5

I don’t think people do it consciously, so self reporting isn’t going to tell you much.

You’d need descriptions of candidates with different types of names and then have people rate them on how appealing they are…something like that.

6

Kinda like subliminal message?

7

Back in the day, Illinois was having a Democratic primary. At that time, (perhaps still now) you had to go out of your way to figure out who the primary candidates were and what they stood for. I believe that people just thought: “Any democrat on the ballot is essentially the same”. But it was not true. There was usually one Democrat Party Endorsee and a bunch of other nut jobs.

The primary winner for Lt Gov was Mark Fairchild, and for another office was Janice Hart. Both of these candidates were LaRouche party. (Do you remember LaRouche? He used to run for president on the platform that he would dissolve Congress and vest all authority in himself. Total whack job.)

Anyway, as I said, the winners were plain name Mark Fairchild and Janice Hart, where the party preferees for those same offices were Aurelia Pucinski and George Sangmeister.

8

Our state treasurer is named Young Boozer. I am confident I voted for him thinking the party was about to start.

9

Ha! Sounds like a rapper.

10

That happened in a congressional primary in Ohio once. One of my political science professors claimed that it was because the candidate had a name that was appealing to local Democrats because they thought he was a member of a local political family. (I think another professor said that one party actually complained when the other party dared to run a candidate with the same last name as a prominent member of their party.)

11

One of the worst politicians (and worst human beings) I ever knew was elected because people voted for the name, which they recognized from a previously elected relative. Because of this I am extremely wary of voting for relatives of other politicians. This issue comes up in almost every San Francisco election, and I admit I give special scrutiny to those “name” candidates and rarely vote for one.

I have no problem voting for candidates with unusual names, such as the previously mentioned Barack Hussein Obama.

12

It happens all the time in Ohio. I bet it happens all over the country. In many towns and counties there’s a prominent family A of X party and the family name “A” is often very common, like “Brown” or “Smith,” common enough that eventually there’s a candidate with the same name from Y party. There’s always some grumbling that the candidate was chosen to confuse the unsophisticated voters, especially in a local race which is officially non-partisan, meaning that the party designations are not included on the ballot.