U.S. Senator Raphael Edward “Ted” Cruz
There’s some big name news this week on the Republican side, involving both Donald Trump (and his alleged side woman, porn star Stormy Daniels), as well as Senator Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz. The news brings to mind some of the nicknames politicians use, and why.
Starting with Trump, Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that her agreement not to disclose details about her sexual relationship with the married Trump is invalid because Trump did not sign the agreement. The agreement itself used pseudonyms allegedly for Trump (“David Dennison“) and Daniels (“Peggy Peterson“). In this case, the pseudonyms were used, apparently, to help hide public figure Trump’s adultery.
In another case, U.S. Senator Rafael Edward Cruz, who calls himself “Ted,” comically went after his 2018 Senate election opponent, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, on the issue of nicknames. Cruz ran an ad with a silly song alleging that O’Rourke changed his first name from Robert to Beto “to fit in.” The absurdity of such accusation is twofold. First, “Beto” is a much stranger name than “Robert,” and thus could hardly be said to have been chosen “to fit in” anywhere (O’Rourke says it’s merely a nickname his parents gave him as a baby and “it just stuck” ever since). Second, as Chris Cuomo pointed out during his recent CNN interview with Cruz:
Look, your name is Rafael. You go by ‘Ted.’ Your middle name is Edward. That’s an Anglicized version of it. He went the other way.
Remember that projection is a familiar Republican tactic, and Cruz tried using it here, to little avail.
Another popular tactic politicians including Rafael Cruz employ is to go by a shortened first name in order to appear like regular Joes rather than the elitists they often are. Thus we have Jeff Sessions (Jefferson), Mike Pence (Michael), Jim Inhofe (James), Fred Thompson (who used to include his middle name Dalton), Chuck Grassley (Charles), Jeb Bush (John Ellis), Newt Gingrich (Newton), Rudy Giuliani (Rudolph), Mitch McConnell (Mitchell), Steve Bannon (Stephen), Mike Crapo (Michael) and so on.
Notice that female politicians don’t typically employ this tactic, possibly because their names usually don’t lend themselves to shortening. Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Lisa Murkowski, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Joni Ernst, Kamala Harris, Claire McCaskill and others, for example, do not shorten their names. A rare exception is U.S. Senator Deborah Stabenow of Michigan, who goes by Debbie or Deb, like her Republican counterpart, Senator Deb Fischer (real name Debra).
One shortened name used early on by a politician to appear more like a regular guy, however, is not too popular anymore: Dick Nixon.
Photo by Jamelle Bouie, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/HUuLLe
