New Hampshire Primary Candidates
What’s in a name? It occurs to me that one of the problems the Democratic candidates are now experiencing is that they don’t sound presidential.
Bill, Bob, Tom and Jerry just don’t evoke national or global leadership. I wonder if we would have been as impressed with previous chief executives if they had presented themselves as Teddy or Frank Roosevelt, Herb Hoover, Jack Kennedy or Dick Nixon. Jimmy Carter got away with it once but I do believe that he would have commanded more respect at home and abroad as James Earl Carter.
Some presidents have been referred to by nicknames (Abe and Ike, among them) but they used their full names on the ballot and when signing bills or engaging in diplomatic exchanges.
I suggest that William Clinton, Robert Kerry, Thomas Harkin and Edmund G. Brown Jr. stop trying to be “one of the boys” and address the issues as men of stature and substance.
POLLY S. BROWDER
La Jolla
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