Editing 2969: Vice President First Names

{{comic
| number    = 2969
| date      = August 7, 2024
| title     = Vice President First Names
| image     = vice_president_first_names_2x.png
| imagesize = 364x556px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = [Political pundit on the ScrabbleTV News channel] "After four years of defying orthographic pressure, Joe ceded the top of the ticket to Kamala, who--after considering Josh, Mark, Andy, Roy, and Pete--picked Tim."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by CORNELIUS LYSANDER THROCKMORTON "BOT" BOTTINGFORD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Randall observes that American {{w|Vice President of the United States|Vice Presidents}} since the 80s have almost all gone by short first names. It should be noted that all of the "short" first names in this strip, with the exception of John (F. Kennedy) are diminutives (or initials) of longer names, but all represent the names which the candidates preferred and publicly used. This comic was published one day after {{w|Kamala Harris}} (who replaced Biden as presidential candidate) chose {{w|Tim Walz}} as her running mate for the {{w|2024 United States presidential election|2024 presidential election}}. Both the Republican and Democratic tickets are present for 2024, since the 2024 election had not yet concluded when this comic was made. Either party winning would match the observation.

In the comic's caption, Randall amusingly describes this as an emerging "political consensus."

While not a "political" consensus per se, the observed phenomenon is a type of consensus — reflecting a multi-decade change in US societal norms — and is not simply a random coincidence. 
* There has been a national US trend toward shorter names since the 1980s and 1990s, with a rise in the popularity of baby names like Ryan, Kyle, Amy and Lisa. (The trend has continued, with even shorter names like Ava, Mia and Max becoming more common in the 2000s and 2010s.) 
* This has paralleled a trend in shorter business names, with companies like Dell, Cisco and eBay before the turn of the millennium and Google, Uber and Lyft after (cf. pre-1980 businesses like AT&T, BNSF or 3M which had to convert their very long names into acronyms to adapt). Product naming also began to simplify in the late 20th century, driven by marketing strategies that favored brevity and memorability, exemplified by Apple's iconic "iMac" and "iPhone" products (again, cf. names like "Tandy 1000", "Ford F 500" or "Little Debbie's Oatmeal Creme Pies").
* All of these naming trends reflect a ''general'' societal trend toward minimalism and less formality, also seen with corporate logos, product design (Apple), clothing design (Gap), furniture design (IKEA) and web/app design.

This societal shift may explain why many politicians with given names like Albert and Richard might have preferred to go by shorter, less formal sounding, more approachable names like Al and Dick, to match the zeitgeist. James Danforth Quayle additionally used his middle name (that being another common self-naming decision; or one arising from family tradition/convenience, given that James Cline Quayle was his father), one less commonly seen than the other unabbreviated name from which "Dan" might have come.

Given that trend, it is noteworthy that Vice Presidents have generally adopted shorter names, but presidents have been less likely to do so. It's possible to create theories around this (eg, the office of President is expected to have more gravitas and formality, while the Vice President has less of an official role, and wants to be more approachable), but the size of the group is small enough that it could easily be coincidence, particularly since many of those names (such as George, Barack and Kamala) can't be easily shortened. The exception, Donald Trump (which can be shortened to Don), did not become a politician until late in life, when he was already nationally famous using his full name.

The '''title text''' amusingly suggests (1) the existence of a ScrabbleTV News channel (named after {{w|Scrabble|the word game}}) staffed with (2) political pundits who (3) report Biden's decision to end his re-election campaign as being driven by orthographic (related to the writing of words) pressure to conform to the aforementioned political consensus. Having Joe Biden as President and Kamala Harris as VP violated this pattern, but elevating Harris to the presidency and selecting a short-named running mate would restore it. In addition to Tim Walz, all of the candidates considered most likely as running mate had short first names: Josh Shapiro, Mark Kelly, Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper and Pete Buttigieg. This could also be a subtle joke about political pundits tending to give confident, inaccurate hot-takes. (Biden's decision was driven, among other things, by worsening polling, rising concerns about his age, a poor debate performance against Trump and subsequent pressure from other leading Democrats.) 

This is Randall's second recent comic about US politics and Kamala Harris, the first being [[2962: President Venn Diagram]] which was published right after she rose to the top of the Democratic ticket.

It is interesting that, even ignoring the stricter definition of having less than four letters in their name, only four pairings have a Presidential given (or adopted) name that is shorter than the Vice-Presidential one, and just two further cases (one of these not involved in winning an election) have equal length names. Whether either version of this trend continues prior to<!-- or beyond! Future editors may come to know this!--> the comic's particular slice of history, and whether there is (anti-)correlation to unsuccessful pairings is an investigation not covered by the comic but could be easily researched.

===Contextual table of names===
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Presidential and Vice-Presidential names, for the period within the comic, in chronological order.
! Year !! President !! Vice-President
|-
| 1952<br/>(also 1956) || '''Dwight''' David "Ike"<ref name="ike">"Ike" was a shared nickname within the ''Ei''senhower family ("Big Ike", "Little Ike"), which became {{w|Ike for President (advertisement)|commonly used}} for himself, though never became a full replacement of his chosen (re-arranged) 'first' name.</ref> {{w|Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower}}<br/>''né David Dwight "Little Ike" Eisenhower'' || '''Richard''' Milhous {{w|Richard Nixon|Nixon}}
|-
| 1960 || style="background-color:lightyellow" | '''John''' "Jack" Fitzgerald {{w|John F. Kennedy|Kennedy}}  || '''Lyndon''' Baines {{w|Lyndon B. Johnson|Johnson}}
|-style="background-color:lightgray"
| 1963<ref name="dallas">JFK's assassination meant LBJ acceded to the role, but he made no new appointment to Vice-President prior to his subsequent re-election bid.</ref><br/>(Not in comic.) || colspan="2" | '''Lyndon''' B. Johnson
|-
| 1964 || '''Lyndon''' B. Johnson || '''Hubert''' Horatio {{w|Hubert Humphrey|Humphrey}} Jr.
|-
| 1968<br/>(also 1972) || ‎'''Richard''' Nixon || '''Spiro''' Theodore {{w|Spiro Agnew|Agnew}}
|-style="background-color:lightgray"
| 1973<ref name="watergate">Changes occuring within a Presidential term, in response to an emerging political scandal</ref> || '''Richard''' Nixon || '''Gerald''' Rudolph {{w|Gerald Ford|Ford}} Jr<br/>''né Leslie Lynch King Jr.''
|-style="background-color:lightgray"
| 1974<ref name="watergate"/> || ‎'''Gerald''' Ford || '''Nelson''' Aldrich {{w|Nelson Rockefeller|Rockefeller}}*
|-
| 1976 || ‎James "'''Jimmy'''" Earl {{w|Jimmy Carter|Carter}} Jr. || '''Walter''' Frederick "Fritz" {{w|Walter Mondale|Mondale}}
|-
| 1980<br/>(also 1984) || '''Ronald''' Wilson {{w|Ronald Reagan|Reagan}} || '''George''' Herbert Walker {{w|George H. W. Bush|Bush}}
|-
| 1988 || '''George''' H.W. Bush || style="background-color:lightyellow" | James Danforth "'''Dan'''" {{w|Dan Quayle|Quayle}}
|-
| 1992<br/>(also 1996) || style="background-color:lightyellow" |William "'''Bill'''" Jefferson {{w|Bill Clinton|Clinton}}<br/>''né William Jefferson Blythe III'' || style="background-color:lightyellow" | Albert "'''Al'''" Arnold {{w|Al Gore|Gore}} Jr.
|-
| 2000<br/>(also 2004) || '''George''' Walker {{w|George W. Bush|Bush}} || style="background-color:lightyellow" |Richard "'''Dick'''" Bruce {{w|Dick Cheney|Cheney}}
|-
| 2008<br/>(also 2012) || '''Barack''' Hussein {{w|Barack Obama|Obama}} II || style="background-color:lightyellow" | Joseph "'''Joe'''" Robinette {{w|Joe Biden|Biden}} Jr.
|-
| 2016 || '''Donald''' John {{w|Donald Trump|Trump‎}}‎ || style="background-color:lightyellow" |Michael "'''Mike'''" Richard {{w|Mike Pence|Pence}}
|-
| 2020 || style="background-color:lightyellow" | "'''Joe'''" Biden || '''Kamala''' Devi {{w|Kamala Harris|Harris}}
|-
| 2024<br>({{w|Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats}} win) || '''Kamala''' Harris || style="background-color:lightyellow" | Timothy "'''Tim'''" James {{w|Tim Walz|Walz}}
|-
| 2024<br>({{w|Republican Party (United States)|Republicans}} win) || '''Donald''' J. Trump || style="background-color:lightyellow" | James David "'''JD'''" {{w|JD Vance|Vance}}<br/>''né James Donald Bowman''
|}

:Complete titles are given in the first occurance, providing a full context of options for identification purposes; subsequent mentions may be reduced to their 'typical' name. Any relevent self-acknowledged sobriquets are inserted in quotes.
:Bold is used to indicate the individual's actually most commonly used single given name, as referenced within the comic. Surnames (also commonly used, with or without the title or other disambiguation) are wikilinked upon their first appearance.
:Italics indicates birth names, where different.
:Darkened rows show transitions not made via an {{w|List of United States major party presidential tickets|'ticket'}} at the end of each 4-year electoral cycle.
:Yellow cells echo the highlights the comic's indication of '''given names''' being four or fewer characters in length.
<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Tables are bad? Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A table is shown in a panel. Names of "Four letters or fewer" are shown in the comic on a yellow background (bolded in the table below).]
:{| class="wikitable"
! !! President !! VP
|-
| 2024 ||? Kamala<br />? Donald || '''Tim ?<br />JD ?'''
|-
| 2020 || '''Joe''' || Kamala
|-
| 2016 || Donald‎ || '''Mike'''
|-
| 2008 || Barack‎ || '''Joe'''
|-
| 2000 || George || '''Dick'''
|-
| 1992 || '''Bill''' || '''Al'''
|-
| 1988 || George || '''Dan'''
|-
| 1980 || Ronald‎ || George
|-
| 1976 || ‎Jimmy || Walter
|-
| 1974 || ‎Gerald || Nelson
|-
| 1973 || ‎Richard || Gerald
|-
| 1968 || ‎Richard || Spiro
|-
| 1964 || Lyndon || Hubert
|-
| 1960 || '''John''' || Lyndon
|-
| 1952 || Dwight || Richard
|}

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Since the 1980s, a political consensus has emerged: vice presidents should have short first names.

==Trivia: Other ways to shorten names==
Politicians can also use a more casual name by using an already less unwieldy middle name (as with {{w|Mitt Romney|Willard Mitt Romney}}, but doubly-averted in Dan Quayle's case). Even when they're not shortened to four or fewer letters, names can be made more casual in other ways (as with {{w|Bernie Sanders|Bernard 'Bernie' Sanders}}). As well, some politicians were commonly called by short nicknames even if they did not run under those names (Dwight 'Ike' Eisenhower).

Some of these may have been adult decisions, a personal choice to mark adulthood (or a change of career) by a more character-distinguishing variation, others may have been 'imposed' upon them by family, friends or peers over time and become happily accepted as the norm by the recipient without any great personal consideration.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]