#888 Vote-cabulary

When all is said and done, the presidential campaign of 2008 was incredibly successful in one regard. It taught us a bunch of new words.
It’s always interesting the vocabulary that emerges from the voting process. The vote-cabulary if you will.
I got to thinking about it the other day when I watched the 30-minute Obama infomercial. The McCain camp said it was “gauzy.” The Obama camp said it gave him “gravitas.” I assume the McCainiacs meant gauzy as in photographed through a soft lens, like a Playboy magazine shoot. It was an interesting reference.
And gravitas was one of those big words you hadn’t seen in common American usage. But it was all over the place in the media this year, partly because Obama looked so young and Palin so new.
I noticed in the Obamamercial that his hair was flecked with far more gray than I’ve ever seen. And it did seem to give him a more steadfast look. Wonder if he got it from a bottle.
Yeah, Clairol Gravitas for Men, just a touch of gray to bestow that look of age and wisdom.
Then there was the word “ideologue.” It was used in opposition to “pragmatist.” As near as I can figure, “ideologue” is a nice way of saying someone is pigheaded. They start with an idea and judge the world and all subsequent events from that idea.
Kind of like prejudice but with politics. Their world is driven by belief and not information on the ground.
Contrasted to that are pragmatists, who change their tactics based on new information and shift strategy accordingly.
In the last campaign, the ideologue called that flip-flopping.
As this was an important campaign based on the core philosophies of the economy, I also heard the word fundamental used a lot by both sides. It was nice.
The word basic has been overused in recent years. And basic is too basic. We needed a word that was both high-falutin and low down in these crucial times.
Fundamental is perfect.
Although for some reason, it always reminds me of a foundation garment.
America, ya gotta love it.