The 2008 Election Lexicon

[tannybogus]

With the new importance of the Internet in the 2008 election and the expected millions of first-time voters, many of whom are young, there has never been a greater need for misinformation.


"The 2008 Election Lexicon" has been assembled to make available in one place a larger collection of unreliable and inaccurate facts relating to politics than can be found anywhere else, including the Washington Post and the New York Times.
First-time users of the lexicon should be aware that reliance on its content in making barroom bets can result in significant losses, for which the compilers cannot be responsible. Nevertheless, psephologists (for which see below) say that voters who have the foresight to bring the lexicon to the polls as an Election Day aid will find it perfectly useless.

agent of change 1. Title claimed by politicians when there is an uptick in the unemployment numbers. 2. a well-placed stick of dynamite.

American A delicate voter whom politicians know they had best lie to.

ANWAR 1. Sometimes erroneously construed to be a call to end war as in "ANWAR NOW!" and also confused with Saeed Anwar (1968 - ), the Pakistani cricket player famous for "lifting a ball pitched outside off stump for six over midwicket." 2. Acronym for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where a wide variety of boreal fauna live healthy, government-protected lives sustaining themselves on the many naturally occurring petroleum lakes in the region.

aspiration also, aspirational. Aspiration is used when the speaker wishes to induce his listeners to gulp or experience gooseflesh. Example: "A vote for me brings us a step closer to realizing the aspirations of the American people." Aspirational, a lofty word foreign to standard English, is also used with goose-fleshy intent, although it has no known meaning.

base (the) The hardcore, rule or ruin, snarling, spit-spewing fanatics who constitute the center of the two major political parties.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/von_hoffman/print

Use with caution!