Obama babies

Hilary Clinton may have a majority of the votes of the over 65’s, but Barrack Obama has a majority of the votes of the under 1’s.  If you search for “Obama baby” on YouTube you get 1,120 hits; a search for “Hilary Clinton baby” only gives 447 hits.  The verdict is clear: American babies prefer Obama.

The reason, of course, has to do with phonetics.  It’s just so much easier to say “Obama” than “Hilary.”  It is not a coincidence after all that “ba” and “ma” almost universally are the names babies give to their parents.  Even the Chinese say baba and mama for heaven’s sake.

Thinking about it this way, maybe “Obama” does resonate with voters on a subliminal, next-to pre-linguistic, level.  Is it reassuring, or scary, to have your ba and ma run the United States?

(I wonder if our new president, Ma, could have benefitted from the same phonetic advantage as Obama in the recent election.  “Ma,” after all, is a much more basic sound than “Xie,” the name of the DPP candidate).