With all the attention focused on the race for president, it’s easy to forget that we’re also choosing a governor this year. Last night was the first live televised debate between Lt. Gov. Beverly Eaves Perdue and Mayor Patrick Lloyd McCrory of Charlotte.
Those are their full names. There’s a bit of a controversy over their political names. McCrory goes by Pat. Perdue goes by Bev, or at least she wants to, but most of the media won’t let her. The AP refers to her as Beverly Perdue. So do most of the state’s major newspapers. After some discussions last week, the Journal is calling her Bev, a change from how we used to do it.
Why the change? Journal style used to be that we always called people by their full name. The exceptions were for celebrities. The idea was that the full name minimized confusion. But over the years, it’s been relaxed. There are a lot of reasons behind it. For politicians, this has always been tricky territory. We were sticklers about calling Jim Hunt James B. Hunt Jr. and Jim Martin James G. Martin, but we have no problem calling Michael F. Easley Mike Easley.
The rule—if there is one—is that within reason, people ought to be named in the manner in which they refer to themselves doesn’t lead to confusion. Bev is a reasonable and accepted nickname for Beverly, no different than Mike or Jim or Fred. I suspect the reluctance for most of the media to use Bev Perdue is a matter of consistency. Mike Easley has always been Mike Easley. It’s not clear when Beverly became Bev on political documents, but you can see the change on ballots. Click here for the 2004 election, and here for the 2008 candidates list.
I’m not sure of the reason behind the switch, if Beverly has always called herself Bev or if there’s a political angle, i.e. to appear more approachable, but again, within the realm of generally calling people what they want to be called, it’s a fair and reasonable use.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
Michael “Mike” Munger is also running for governor. I searched for him on the Journal’s site. All I can find was a single line, in articles about the Perdue/McCrory debates, stating that he was not invited to participate.
Any chance that the Journal will actually report on his positions, or does he have to be in a formal debate to get coverage? Local radio stations allowed him some air time after he was excluded from the debates. I’d hope the Journal could do something similar.
We’ve written a few stories on Mike Munger and his campaign. Most of his efforts focus on a more limited definition of winning, getting at least 2 percent of the general election vote to avoid having to start over with petitions in 2012. That said, you’re right. We need to pay more attention to him.
My comment was more sarcastic than necessary. Sorry.
I frequently support third party candidates, but it seems they spend most of their time explaining why they should be included in debates or on ballots. They rarely have their actual message heard except by die-hard supporters. It’d be nice to see more coverage by the traditional news media. I also think the local elections are more important than the national ones.
Thanks for allowing my two cents.
We need some major overhauls of our whole system. The dollar is falling against the peso.
The banks have more protection under the laws than anybody…they come first. I didn’t do this to them…they did this to me.
They’ve created a credit scoring system that is known to be inaccurate >1/3 of the time.
Then they punish people who do pay taxes & mortgages with accelerated due dates & false charges.
Ex. I have a mortgage with Branch Banking & Trust. They overestimate the escrow every year. I’ve called & written them about this but they refuse to assist me with the real problem that they created.
Instead, they charge me late charges on the over-estimated figures when I pay the correct amount. I was credited $6 for a whole year of my correct figures in 2007, but this year they are treating me differently.
They’ve charged me hefty late charges 3 months in a row even though I’m never late.
The funniest part of this is that THEY HAVE THE TAX & INSURANCE BILLS FROM PAYING THEM, SO THE FIGURES ARE ALREADY RECORDED IN THEIR SYSTEM.
Apparently they don’t have a calculator at BB&T;or a good enough computer to adjust for the real tax and insurance figures.
They don’t know me from Adam so I presume this is their business practice. Hard to say if the CEO knows of it. I’m currently filing a complaint with the State so we’ll see how that goes.
The lenders are also filing vandalism insurance claims like crazy to cash in on failed “flipper/re-models”. Is that really vandalism or is financial industry just getting nasty?
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