Thursday, January 31, 2008

Different Salutations Across Party Lines

If you want to see what names candidates use to refer to each other, check out this visualization on the New York Times website.

It seems that whenever republicans refer to a democrat, and whenever democrats refer to a republican, they use the informal Firstname Lastname format. When referring to a member of the same party, on the other hand, candidates use titles like Governor and Senator. Is this a new pattern or has this always been the case? Is it strategic or accidental?

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3 Comments:

Blogger Michelle said...

Makes sense to me that they would have greater respect for members of their own party, and as a natural result use more respectful salutations.

Or, conversely, you could make the argument that they may know each other better and so would naturally use less formal names.

Of course, there's still your idea that it may be strategic and not natural at all.

January 31, 2008 2:08 PM  
Blogger Michelle said...

Makes sense to me that they would have greater respect for members of their own party, and as a natural result use more respectful salutations.

Or, conversely, you could make the argument that they may know each other better and so would naturally use less formal names.

Of course, there's still your idea that it may be strategic and not natural at all.

January 31, 2008 2:08 PM  
Blogger Kyle Wild said...

they would know members of the other party better?

January 31, 2008 2:10 PM  

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