Nader’s Nadir

Quote: “If the Democrats can’t landslide the election this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down.” Ralph Nader, after announcing his third run for president.

Figure of Speech: anthimeria (an-thih-MER-ia), the verbing figure. From the Greek, meaning “one part for another.”

Here we go again. When Democrats accuse him of being the Spoiler Redux, Nader replies with an anthimeria, which changes one part of speech, such as a noun (“landslide”), into another part of speech (“landsliding”).

The rumpled crusader maintains that that his campaign shouldn’t affect the outcome at all.  But it’ll jack up his ego like a pimped-out Corvair.

Figaro interviewed Nader in 2000, months before he denied Democrats a win in the crucial Florida balloting. When Figaro asked if someone put a gun to his head and told him to vote for either Gore or Bush, which he would choose, Nader answered without hesitation: “Bush.” Al Gore, he said, had “totally betrayed” his environmental stand. “If you want the parties to diverge from one another,” Nader continued, “have Bush win.”

Mission accomplished.

Snappy Answer:  “So you want to see them close down?”

Dead to Lights

Quote:  “Washington today is a place where good ideas go to die.”  Barack Obama.

Figure of Speech: snowclone (SNOW-clone), the retrofitted cliché. From the old saw about Eskimos knowing 200 words for snow. First proposed on the blog agoraphilia and promoted on the highly influential Language Log.

Hillary says she offers solutions, not speeches. Barack fires back a neatly packed snowclone, a figure that takes an overused expression and applies it to something new. A Google search produces a whole pile of snowclones: “where cathedrals go to die,” “where computers go to die,” even “where continents go to die. (The original expression, “where elephants go to die,” refers to the myth that the beasts had a secret place to rest in peace.)

Obama’s snowclone works for him politically, though. While Hillary tries to label Barack as a mere windbag, he makes her look like a Washington insider and a thrill-killing pessimist.

Well-played, sir.

Snappy Answer:  “They must be pretty sick, huh?”

Smoke-Filled Roon

Quote: “I am not a big believer in smoke-filled rooms.”  Minnesota State Senator Amy Klobuchar, in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech: metonymy (meh-TON-ih-mee), the scale-changing figure. From the Greek, meaning “name change.”

Who would disagree with Senator Klobuchar? Is anyone for smoke-filled rooms? But hazy as it is, the smoke-filled room clearly demonstrates the power of figures. It takes a political concept out of thin air and obscures it with sheer rhetoric.

Our dusky room is a metonymy, a figure that takes a part of something and makes it represent the whole (White House for the presidency, the throne for grouchy old queens). The metonymy breathes poetry into our daily speech; but when we internalize it, the figure can suck the wind out of rational thought.

Senator Klobuchar wants the Democratic primaries, and not the super delegates at the convention, to determine the party’s presidential candidate. But party hacks in smoke-filled rooms produced an Abraham Lincoln.

Imagine if the senator had said, “I’m not a big believer in knowledgeable political activists determining who would be the best, most winnable candidate.” That makes the smoke-filled room sound a lot healthier, doesn’t it?

Snappy Answer:  “Do Democrats smoke?”

It's My Party, I'll Deny If I Want To

Quote:  “This is her campaign, her presidency and her decisions.” Bill Clinton.

Figure of Speech: anaphora (an-AH-phor-a), the first-word repeater. From the Greek, meaning “carrying back.”

With husbands like Bill, who needs, um, the White House? His disingenuous attacks on Barack Obama are doing Senator Clinton more harm than good. Surveys of voters in the most recent primaries show that Bill’s big mouth is turning people against Hillary.

So has he agreed to shut up? Hardly. But his neat anaphora — a figure that repeats the first word of succeeding clauses or phrases —  implies he’ll move the big ol’ shadow that has been darkening his wife’s ethos.

Snappy Answer:  “We hope she made you say that.”

Dude! Want to Smoke Some Mob?

Quote:  “We like to think that it’s a vestige of the past. It’s not. It is as unrelenting as weeds that continue to sprout in the cracks of society.”  Andrew Cuomo, New York’s attorney general, speaking of organized crime.

Figure of Speech: catachresis (cat-a-KREE-sis), the metaphor gone wild. From the Greek, meaning “bad use.”

Andrew Cuomo is smart, ambitious, and owns great genes (his dad, Mario, was one of the great political speakers of his generation). Plus he says neat-sounding stuff about the mob. Note that he uses “We like to think” rather than “Some morons think,” as many of his fellow New Yorkers might put it.

But then he gets to the weeds sprouting in the cracks of society. Where Figaro comes from, weeds sprout through the cracks of sidewalks, or in the back garden of the pothead down the road. Not society.

Cuomo commits a mistake that Figaro sees all the time in publishing: forgetting halfway through a metaphor or simile that one is being metaphorical. If he had said, “It is as unrelenting as weeds; it continues to sprout in the cracks of society,” then the Mob would serve its proper weedy role in the figure. But he didn’t, so chalk one figurative demerit for Cuomo.

To quote Michael Corleone, “Where the hell does it end?”

Snappy Answer:  “And what are you, herbicide?”

And the Governor Would Mispronounce Him

Quote: “If Barack Obama were a state, he’d be California.” Maria Shriver.

Figure of Speech:  antapodosis (an-ta-PO-do-sis), the extended analogy. From the Greek, meaning “giving back.”

The Kennedy royal family is backing the most Kennedyesque of current candidates, Barack Obama. The latest Kennedy to make the endorsement is Maria Shriver, whose husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, backs aging manly-man John McCain.

Shriver goes all out in her Obama speech, using one of the more elaborate figures. The antapodosis is the DNA of similes, matching similarities like genes. “I mean think about it,” says Shriver of the Obama-California convergence. “Diverse. Open. Smart. Independent. Bucks tradition. Innovative. Inspiring. Dreamer. Leader.”

If Shriver were a state, she’d be Massachusetts. Expensive. Pretentious. Talkative. Pretty. Liberal. Unintentionally funny.

Snappy Answer:  “You mean his inhabitants would leave for Oregon and Montana?”