Kris or Krista

I was perusing the candidate endorsements in last week’s Independent, the alt-weekly paper here. There is a candidate for District Court judge here named Kris Bailey, who I had assumed was a woman. He is in fact a man, but as the Indy points out he doesn’t seem to mind our thinking His Honor is Her Honor. Bailey’s website doesn’t identify him real clearly—indeed, there is one picture of the Bailey family in which Kris’s WIFE is holding a gavel.

This makes a difference. I confess, on those down-ticket races where I probably know little if anything about the candidates, I often use the apparent sex of a candidate as a guide. All things being equal, I’ll usually vote for the woman.

The Chief Justice of our state Supreme Court, elected in 2000, is named I. Beverly Lake, Jr. (I is for Isaac.) He is a perennial GOP office seeker, got crushed in the 1980 governor’s race, won some and lost some other campaigns for various offices. His political fortunes improved, though, when he changed his name on the ballot, in 2000, to “Beverly Lake.” Quite a bit less masculine than “I. Beverly Lake, Jr.,” wouldn’t you say?

Electoral androgyny. Who'da thought this would be a conservative political strategy?