Campaignspeak, as inspired by Hertzberg's inspired comment. Call this the first edition.
Misspeak (per Hertzberg) - (v) the act of telling a very large lie; alternately the explanation for a gaffe that demonstrated the candidate didn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. (First modern use, 1973 by Nixon's press secretary Ron Zeigler)
Day One (n) - the day a candidate will start behaving like an adult and demonstrate the ability to lead in a way wholly belied by the months of campaigning that preceded day one; purportedly the day the candidate takes office.
Hope (v) - what a candidate resorts to long after the prospects of victory vanish.
Wrong Signals (n, pl) - the euphemism a candidate employs in an overt attack on an opponent in an effort to distance himself from the ugliness of the attack.
Disappointed (adj) - the emotion a candidate claims to feel about an opponent just before delightedly bashing said opponent.
With All Due Respect - translated roughly back out of campaignspeak and into English: "normally what I'm about to say would appear dangerously unhinged, so I'm letting you know at the outset that it's just, you know, politics that drives me to say it..."
Regular Americans (n, pl.) - a fictitious group of people politicians and media elites purport to know or, more ostentatiously, be one of. Uniformly broad caricatures akin to the Noble Savage stereotype of the 19th century.
Main Street (n) - Where Regular Americans reside.
Experience (n) - A substance that is uniformly in abundance in the candidate speaking, and uniformly deficient in the candidate being spoken of. No correlation to a candidate's background.
1 comment:
Wonderful, thank you.
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