What is in a Name?

As Juliet once asked while standing in her balcony

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2.

However, if your Hillary Rhodham Clinton, the same 'rose' may not smell as sweet:

CNN) -- If presidential elections were held today, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would likely have a comfortable edge over Sen. John McCain, but take away her maiden name and McCain has a better shot of landing in the Oval Office.

So say the results of a CNN poll released Friday by Opinion Research Corp., which asked 506 adult Americans whom they preferred among potential 2008 presidential candidates. The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 4.5 percent.

Asked if they preferred Hillary Rodham Clinton to McCain, respondents gave the Democratic New York senator and former first lady a 51 percent to 44 percent advantage over the Republican Senator from Arizona. Remove "Rodham" and McCain had a 1 percentage point advantage, 48 percent to 47 percent.

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However, using "Rodham" seems to cut into Clinton's edge if her opponent is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Though Clinton has an advantage over Giuliani with or without her maiden name, using "Rodham" closes the gap. Asked if they prefer Hillary Clinton or Giuliani, Clinton has a 4 percentage point advantage, 50 percent to 46 percent.

Add "Rodham" to the equation and the former first lady's advantage over the Republican former mayor drops to 1 percentage point, 48 percent to 47 percent.

When I read this I found it interesting that the same person would answer the same question differently based upon if Hillary's maden name is inserted or not. I wonder if this is a function of name recognition, or stupidity on the part of the persons polled, or were they just not paying attention. Maybe we just need less polls!