'... Political writers over the decades have developed a whole specialized vocabulary to quickly contextualize politicians in sound-bite form. Ideological geography is just left-right, a single horizontal line apparently representing our whole universe of beliefs, but people buy it. Then, in a nod to sports coverage, we shorthand the political standings by talking about "presumptive frontrunners," "fringe candidates" and "insurgents."
'The latest linguistic fad is to describe a candidate as being prone to making "populist appeals," a concept nearly as nuts as that ostensible single horizontal line of all possible beliefs. Only in the Beltway do they have to come up with a special term to describe the inexplicable (to them) phenomenon of a politician who advocates for his actual constituents, instead of just whoring along the usual career track like everyone else.'
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