What’s in a name? For some candidates, using a nickname on the ballot might improve their recognition among voters or even kick up a couple of extra votes if it’s catchy.
Several candidates for municipal office in Lake County go by nicknames such as “Coach” and “Fisherman Bob.”
A nickname might reflect how friends and acquaintances know a candidate, observers say, but it can also pique a voter’s interest on an otherwise crowded ballot and serve to humanize the candidate.
“Fisherman Bob” is how everyone knows Roberto Mendoza, so he went with it when he decided to run for the Democratic nomination for mayor of East Chicago in the May primary election.
“A lot of people don’t know me as Roberto Mendoza,” he said. “Back in the 1980s, I used to fish a lot — in two years I never missed a day. I was laid off from construction work and then got called back to work.
“It caught on real quick and it is kind of funny.”
Mendoza said the name has served as a political advantage in the past.
“As a matter of fact, when I ran for precinct committeeman in the 1980s, my opponent’s nickname was ‘Dirty,'” Mendoza said. “I remember that I was on the other side of the wall at an event and I heard his wife talking to him saying, ‘How are you going to beat a guy named “Fisherman Bob” with a name like “Dirty?”
“And guess what? I won.”
Ballot rules
Under Indiana election law, a candidate can include a nickname, a middle name, initials or a name by which they are commonly known to appear in parentheses on the ballot. According to Indiana Secretary of State’s Office spokesperson Valerie Kroeger, the nickname can be challenged, but only by a citizen in front of the county’s Board of Elections. A nickname cannot exceed 20 characters in length and it may not imply a title or degree.
Joseph “Roby Joe” Buguszewicz, who is running for Hammond City Council District 1, inherited his nickname from his father.
“My father worked at Standard Oil years ago,” Buguszewicz said. “They asked what his name was, and he told them ‘Joe Buguszewicz.’ They said, ‘What? We don’t even know how to pronounce that. Where do you live?’ My dad said, ‘Roby.’ And they said, ‘OK, well, we’re going to call you Roby Joe,’ and the name carried on to me.”
Buguszewicz grew up and still lives in the Roby neighborhood in North Hammond.
“I was born in Roby where the new Wal-mart is now,” Buguszewicz said. “In fact, I measured the building, and between the chicken and the fish sections, I was born right there in 1937.”
Indiana University Northwest political science professor Marie Eisenstein said an interesting name can go a long way toward distinguishing a candidate on a crowded ballot.
“It probably makes them more relatable,” Eisenstein said. “It might be that people actually know them better by their nickname. Because name recognition is a very large percentage of the battle, people will vote for you if they know the name.”
Lesser-known candidates have benefited in the past if they shared a name with a well-known local politician.
Lake County Recorder Mike Brown won a close Democratic primary race over Michelle Fajman in 2012 in part because of name recognition. He has the same name as the incumbent Lake County clerk but who had previously served as county recorder, and his campaign signs were similar in color and design to those of Clerk Mike Brown.
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“It absolutely helped that individual,” Eisenstein said.
Desire to run
Most of the candidates have been running grassroots campaigns in an effort to make an impact in their communities.
Robert L. Buggs Sr., who is running for the Democratic nod for mayor of Gary, said many people know him as “Mr. Buggs.”
“I was in a parade one time and people started yelling, ‘Mr. Buggs! Mr. Buggs!’ ” he said. “And a lot of them I didn’t even know.”
Buggs refers to himself as a “people-tician,” rather than a politician, and he channeled most of his campaign funds into three “Mr. Buggs” billboards that dot the city.
Mendoza said he doesn’t have a big campaign apparatus behind him, but friends urged him to run.
“A lot of people who I would see in the streets would say, ‘Fisherman Bob, you ought to run for mayor,’ ” Mendoza said. “I say, it takes a lot of money, but they said, just put your name up there and we’ll vote for you.’ You won’t see any big signs, but you will see me at church and in stores. They know me. If I say ‘Roberto,’ they’ll look confused, but when I say ‘Fisherman Bob,’ they’ll say, ‘Oh, my son knows you.’
“It’s a catchy name.”