What's in a name?
Category: Politics...
Posted Saturday, April 26, 2003 at 04:14 PM [GMT-6]

Has any candidate for a major political office ever won with a campaign based primarily on how hard his name is to pronounce? I'd be surprised if this has proven to be a successful strategy in the past, but apparently Randy Neugebauer is going to give it his best shot (along with promising to "keep west Texas safe from terrorism," which, frankly, hasn't been my hot button lately, but perhaps I'm overly complacent).

His first TV ad with this theme was set in a barbershop. A geezer in the chair tried every variation of pronunciation he could think of, getting corrected each time by all the other patrons, who didn't seem to have any problem saying "naug-a-bower." That one got pretty old in a hurry. The current one has a terminally cute elementary-school-aged girl giving a pitch — along with outtakes of her name-fumbling. It's getting a little stale, too, although her line "glad he's not a write-in candidate" is pretty clever.

I bring this up only because I think Mr. Neugebauer has gone overboard with his latest tactic in this strategy. My answering machine has a message on it from his campaign, and the young lady reading the script (and not very well, I might add) urges me to "please consider voting for Mr. Randy Nogginbower..." I'm certain this was not an intentional gaffe; surely, the campaign isn't that tightly choreographed. But it did make me laugh.

Now, whether laughter is the desired result in this campaign is a whole other issue.