Political Humor | Political Nicknames

John McCain recently gave Barack Obama a new political nickname: ‘Dr. No‘. Nobody ever accused the Republican candidate of being up-to-date on the pop culture scene that’s for sure, especially when he references a movie older then most voters in 2008.

But there is a bigger question: do we really need any more nicknames?

It seems like everywhere you turn there is a new one for a Presidential candidate. You can’t swing a dead cat without seeing or hearing someone’s novel take on a politician’s moniker.

Of course it would help if the nickname was funny. Of course most of them are not.

‘BhNobama’

See what I mean? That nickname has the wittiness of a Craig Ferguson monologue.

‘McLame’

Come on people. That one absolutely sucks. What’s next, ‘Luddite’? Oh wait, they used that one too

First off, a politician’s nickname needs to be relevant but not too over the top. Take for example the mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, a.k.a. ‘Mumbles’. He isn’t that great with his speech and pronunciation, once called a Jumbotron a ‘jumbletron’. Clearly, he puts the em-PHA-ses on the wrong syl-LA-ble.

There is also Larry ‘Wide Stance’ Craig, Ted ‘Chappaquiddick‘ Kennedy, and Eliot ‘Black Socks’ Spitzer.

‘Obamessiah’

Now there is a nickname that has a nice ring to it while also mocking the fact everyone thinks he’s a political savior.

Another important component of a nickname is quantity. Like when Ross Perot split the Republican vote in 1992, having a lot of nicknames confuses people resulting in none of them really sticking. Menino isn’t called ‘Marblemouth’ or ‘Flappytongue’ or ‘No speakino’, just ‘Mumbles’.

There are so many nicknames for McCain it isn’t even funny. There’s ‘Full Metal McCain’, ‘McInsane’, ‘John McPain’, ‘McWar’, ‘McAncient’ and that’s just part of the list.

It is so out of hand that the left is actually discussing the problem and trying to agree on one common nickname for McCain on internet forums. Judging by some of the replies, as well as last week’s column has me seriously wondering if liberals are really adult children.

Some of the nickname suggestions were ‘Boo Boo’, ‘Bamm Bamm’, ‘Mr. Magoo’, and ‘Elmer Fudd’. I’m not making this stuff up.

Of course, being a liberal forum, there was the inevitable reply that denigrating names like the ones above are ‘childish and tiresome, and sometimes downright disgusting, regardless who the candidate is’.

Unlike the nicknames I found that reply to be funny. Mr. Magoo can be pretty offensive after all.

Chris ‘Knuckles’ Cameron’s political humor column appears here magically every Thursday unless the check to Fiar a.k.a. ‘Trouser Snake’ doesn’t clear in time. He also has his own blog of odd humor at Angry Seafood.

Humor-blogs.com’s political nickname is Sue.