Regionalism in American politics, and nicknames

Running for political office looks more and more some odd kind of frat initiation rite. You gotta know that it's cheese whiz on your cheese steak, and watch where you step walking through pig farms. But a flap over a spouse's utterly normal but non-local pronunciation of Nevada? Nev[æ]da is "correct" (here) and Michelle Obama's non-local Nev[a]da was a "flub", and "the real local sin" (as opposed to prostitution and gambling, here). Could we occasionally hear details of ideas for getting this car out of the ditch, instead of this? Or maybe it'll get funnier when somebody can get them all really seriously drunk, cover them with molasses and corn flakes and turn them lose in the desert at night. Film at 11.

On the other hand, I'm all for some campaign humor, and candidate nicknames work pretty well. We're not approaching the grand days of punk bands like the Dead Kennedys and Naked Raygun, but Wonkette's been using "Barry" for Obama (the name he once did use, I gather) and Walnuts for McCain (you can figure it out). Mittster doesn't quite work, and Mittens is not Wonkette's best invention. A couple of Hillary variants fell very flat at the ADS Word of the Year competition, like Billary, and yesterday's HillAir shtick on the plane wasn't somebody else's nickname but a written gag, presumably. The missus is sad that Chris Dodd is gone from the race, since Obamadad (Obama/Dodd) seems less likely as a democratic ticket But Huckabee just lends itself to play ... leaving aside people who say that "Huckabee" sounds dumb: Huck and Huckster are all over the press, and there's ample note of what huck rhymes with in the blogosphere. Again, Wonkette rules with Huckles.