has led all these campaigns to present the candidates as approachable best buddy types, since American voters demand that candidates not only demonstrate sufficient "respect" for them, but actually kowtow and suck up to them, but resent any implication that perhaps a candidate might be shown a bit of respect in return.

He also gave new life to rolled up flannel sleeves, iirc.

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his name is John Ellis Bush.

"Jeb" won't be on the ballot.

That name is emblazoned in infamy on the pages of US history.

The stupidity of republican voters.

George Washington ring a bell?

Closely.

Even though it *is* a nickname... but then, so was "W."

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And she made us sit there for 3 or 4 evenings and make up these stupid posters that said Vote for Diana.

My mom walked in and asked "Shouldn't you put your last name on those?" and she replied "If they don't know my last name I don't want them to vote for me anyway". Actually it was not as dumb as it sounded since there were only about 100 kids in the entire school and she may well have been the only Diana there. But it made me want to puke anyway.

Now, I don't know Sen. Sanders well enough to refer to him by his first name. And I don't like Ms Clinton well enough to call her by her first name. But the whole phenomenon still strikes me as juvenile.

So this first-name approach being taken by campaigns is just trying to take advantage of that unfortunate political reality...?.

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"I'm just wild about Harry" -- I'd forgotten that one, too.

OK, OK, I guess this first-name business has been around a while.

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and more and more about tribal affiliation and identity.

It's easier to sell a personality onto which we can project what we want to see (cf. Obama, Hillary), and much harder to sell the pro-corporate (i.e. Third Way) economic policy the candidates espouse.

nt