Gretchen? I thought her first name was Karen ...
Some follow-ups are in order here.
First, thanks for your kind words, FRiend laplata.
Good analysis, FRiend volunbeer. Pandering is right! Still, I don’t even see Whitmer flipping Michigan at this point. There’s certainly lots of precedent for presidential candidates failing to carry their home state, Al Gore in 2000 leaping to mind. DJT in 2016 doesn’t count, considering the political derangement of NYC. My part of New York, suburban Buffalo, is nearly as patriotic as my current home in Florida.
As for you, FRiend Liberty, may I first applaud you for being the namesake of my all-time favorite Western.
I’m glad you mentioned that “Karen” meme, which I am only beginning to understand.
As a lifelong student of onomastics — the branch of linguistics that focuses on name origins and meanings — I recognize that there’s a certain karma about names.
Karen is a pretty common female name and one I never would have associated with the image of an angry, ever-complaining, massively entitled harpy.
The one Karen I can recall from my high school graduating class of 1975 was a nice girl who I hope found herself a conservative guy and now has lots of conservative kids and grandkids.
“Gretchen” on the other hand, could become a superb replacement for the “Karen” meme. Quoting Woody Allen — disgusting little man though he is — “Gretchen” has that “Prussian, Aryan, Nordic, Nazi” ring to it.
It also has the advantage of not being anywhere near as common as Karen.
Might I suggest that “Gretchen” might eventually become FReepspeak for a certain class of nasty, bossy females?