Whosis or Whatsizname?

In the Post:

Over and over you hear the same plaint from voters. Like Coke and Pepsi, Wal-Mart and Kmart, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen — Kilgore and Kaine are so genetically, generically similar that it’s tough to tell them apart. They may be the most uniform candidates since sliced bread.

We political bloggers spend a lot of time trying to explain why our candidate (Whosis) is different than the other candidate (Whatsizname). To us, it’s black and white. But the Post is right: to the overwhelming majority of the voters, it’s just a couple of married, white, male, Richmond lawyers in their 40s.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

11 replies on “Whosis or Whatsizname?”

  1. Heck, I’m a pretty “in the know” sort of person, but I’ll confess that early in the race I swapped their names in my head. Normally two different sounding names with the same first letter doesn’t throw me for such a loop. ;) Didn’t we (showing my ignorance here) have a Senate race not so long featuring two candidates with the same last name?

  2. Maybe this is the reason Kilgore’s been ducking as many public appearances as possible. Once you hear that voice, you never forget it.

  3. Oh, and Duane, that was 1996 when now-Governor Mark Warner (D) ran for the Senate against John Warner (r), one of the Senate’s longest serving members. That race gave rise to one of my favorite slogans: Mark, not John.

  4. I wonder whether people who can’t discern the difference between the candidates in the race for governor will be showing up to vote. Maybe they will, but it makes me think they’re disengaged.

  5. Janis, I’m hoping that people who can’t distinguish between the candidates will associate the Republican party of Virginia with the scandals and corruption of the national Republicans, and vote Democrat for that reason.

  6. Most of my friends don’t give a crap about politics. However, all of them voted in the Richmond Mayoral elections. Yet this time around, most of them aren’t going to even vote — for precisely the reason mentioned by Janis. Both candidates are so lack luster and similar they just feel like voting isn’t worth the time. They’ll end up with the game regardless what happens.

    Any candidate should take a page from Wilder’s play book: Have a personality. It seems to work.

  7. The most confusing thing is that both Kilgore and Kaine strongly support the right for a woman to have an abortion on demand.

    I find it sad that both Kilgore and Kaine support the right to take a sharp metal object and kill a fetus with it. But I guess Jerry Kilgore and Tim Kaine just don’t get it.

  8. It’s also confusing when the pro-tax candidate is the Republican. He’s got a regional referendum plan to levy a local income tax. I’m trying to remember who the republicans are and who the democrats are here! Jerry Kilgore’s pro-abortion pro-tax platform gets me confused.

  9. It is amazing to me that since the commonwealth’s inception as a british colonial possession in 1607, the commonwealth has only once in Four centuries selected a non-white person to govern it. The non surprising fact that most voters find the leading candidates for governor indistinguishable from each other should not be remarkable given the fact that it is very difficult to distinguish any of the previous governors from each other with the exception of a few Presidents. Perhaps that is why it was relevant to Viola Baskerville to mention it in her stump speech for Lt. Governor. She sought to become the first Woman to be elected Lt. Governor and the second African American. A reference that truly “offended” you. You reside in a state that allowed a school system to defund public education rather than allow African Americans the opportunity to go to school in an racially integrated setting. Refusing to acknowledge the manifold discrimination inherent in a system that selects only white males to govern is refreshing, not politically correct and unnecessary. Representative democracy works best when it is truly representative in all the ways that matter. Race Matters. Always has, always will.

  10. Perhaps that is why it was relevant to Viola Baskerville to mention it in her stump speech for Lt. Governor. She sought to become the first Woman to be elected Lt. Governor and the second African American. A reference that truly “offended” you.

    Gosh, Trevor, that’s the second time you’ve written that about my comments, and it’s really rude of you. What I actually wrote was:

    Not Viola Baskerville. She was very much in play until she spoke here in Charlottesville. I like her personally — she’s affable and interesting. But her schtick makes me angry. In her remarks that evening, she asked, repeatedly, “Can a black woman be elected to lieutenant governor in Virginia?” Since then, I’ve seen that she does this regularly. Her campaign is based substantially on white guilt — on getting liberals like me to vote for her because of her sex and race. I don’t like Viola Baskerville saying “vote for me because I’m black” any more than I like David Duke saying “vote for me because I’m white.” And what I really don’t like is being manipulated. Though I may agree with her on most issues, and I may like her very much personally, I’ve stewed over this long enough, and I just can’t muster a vote for a race-based campaign.

    There’s a huge difference between pointing out that she’d be the first black woman elected to LG and between asking, repeatedly, if it was possible for a black woman to be elected to LG, and if we were up to the task. I was half hoping that Chap Peterson might ask that we vote for him because he’s white. Everybody’s shock would only reveal how ridiculous the double-standard is.

    You can pretend that makes me ignorant or bigoted, but you and I both know that neither is true. I know more about feminism and race relations than 95% of Virginians, and I haven’t said a word here that ought to annoy any rational individual.

  11. Most candidates for anything, most anywhere in the United States, are white, male, married lawyers. That hints at a structural problem with our political systems — not something to do with the personalities or lack thereof of Tim Kaine and Jerry Kilgore. It truly doesn’t help that their names begin with the same letter.

Comments are closed.