Presidential election rules of thumb

Now that both major party tickets have been decided for 2008, it's a fitting time to look at a couple of rules of thumb for predicting a winner.

Americans like presidents with British names
British here means vaguely English, with fairly bland Scots or Irish names, e.g. McKinley, Kennedy, or Reagan, being included. 39 of 43 presidents have had British names. The exceptions? Van Buren, T. Roosevelt, and F. Roosevelt were all descendants of the New Amsterdam Dutch elite and thus were New York's equivalent of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Eisenhower was a commanding general in a victorious war, a German-American equivalent of Jackson or Grant. Besides, he had the good British-sounding nickname "Ike."

For 2008, advantage: McCain.

The three-syllable ticket
Since World War II, the major party ticket whose surnames total closer to three syllables is 9-2-4 in winning the presidency. Since the mass adoption of color TV (before 1968), the tendency is even more pronounced: 8-0-2. Why? Non-British names are often more than two syllables (e.g. Eisenhower, Kefauver, Goldwater, Ferraro, Dukakis, Lieberman). Also, a common stress pattern in a three-syllable ticket is AaB (Reagan-Bush, Clinton-Gore), which provides an aural combination of power and restraint more pleasing to the ear than the thudding AB (Ford-Dole, Bush-Quayle, Dole-Kemp), the dog-trot AaBb (Carter-Mondale), or the mouth-mush of any five-syllable ticket (Mondale-Ferraro, Dukakis-Bentsen).

For 2008, advantage: McCain-Palin (4 syllables to 5).