The Newsmagazine of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education | Friday September 10, 2010

By Bryan Warner
Published: Dec. 29, 2009

RALEIGH - With 2009 coming to an end, here are a few terms and phrases that were among the most prominent and peculiar in the political year that was.

Beer Summit – (noun) When asked what he thought about the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Gates in Gates' own home, President Barack Obama replied that the police had “acted stupidly.”  The remark set off a political firestorm and resulted in a meeting at the White House with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Gates and the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, held over a few pints. Unfortunately for singer Kanye West, no such furor arose when the president called him a “jackass” for interrupting the acceptance speech of Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards.  On that, the nation was apparently united.

birther – (noun) Against evidence to the contrary, a segment of the American populace (called “birthers” by some) continued to question the birthplace of President Barack Obama, and thus the constitutionality of his presidency.  A poll by Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling in August found that one in four likely North Carolina voters did not think Obama was born in the U.S. The poll also found that 8 percent of those polled thought that Hawaii (Obama’s place of birth) was not a state, or were not sure.

budget gap – (noun)  With tax collection taking a sharp nosedive in the wake of the nasty economic downtown, many states faced a menacing chasm between projected revenue and expenses.  The budget gap and its accompanying hard choices left North Carolina operating on a temporary budget weeks into the start of the fiscal year in July and likely will cause headaches and heartburn for state lawmakers when they return to Raleigh in May.

death panel – (noun) With a single post on her Facebook page, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin caused an uproar in the already heated health-care debate, referring to a provision in a House bill dealing with end-of-life planning as the creation of “death panels.”  While the claim was vigorously disputed by supporters of the bill and found to be inaccurate by ABC News and Time Magazine, the term effectively threw the health-care debate for a loop, demonstrated the staying power of Palin on the national stage and showed that in this era of YouTubing, tweeting and Facebooking, one never knows how any political story might be shaped.

filibuster proof – (adjective) Thanks to the conversion -- or defection, depending on one’s political persuasion -- of Sen. Arlen Specter and 312 votes in Minnesota handing Al Franken a ticket to the U.S. Senate, Democrats enjoyed a 60-member caucus in that chamber and  -- at least in theory -- a filibuster-proof majority.  As the health-care debate has shown, keeping those 60 votes together is easier said than done.

Great Recession, The – (noun) With unemployment in double-digits, the housing market still in the tank and corporations once thought invincible shuttering their doors (or asking for bailouts), the deep and enduring recession of the latter part of the decade is one of the worst economic slogs since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

hiking the Appalachian Trail – (verb) First employed by South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford as a ruse to flee his home state for a visit with his Argentine mistress, the phrase provided late-night comics with weeks of material and entered the political lexicon as a euphemism for unfaithful politicos.   (See also: “I want to spend more time with my family,” a euphemism used by political figures resigning in the face of looming indictment.)

public option – (noun) With control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in Democratic hands, many progressives had high hopes that health-care reform would include a robust public option, that is, a health-insurance plan offered by the federal government.  The prospects for a public option seemed doomed over the summer months, then made a Lazarus-like return briefly in the fall, only to apparently be sacrificed for the all-important filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

stimulus – (noun) Otherwise known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the federal spending plan was designed to give the U.S. economy a $787 billion jolt in the face of a severe economic downturn, with road and highway construction being the biggest recipient of the funds.

tea party – (noun) Just months into the Obama presidency, throngs of disgruntled conservatives congregated at a series of so-called “tea parties” throughout the country to protest everything from the auto-industry bailout to health-care reform and what they generally viewed as the nation’s slide toward socialism.  As the protestors lofted their sometimes crudely made signs, pundits on the right and left argued if it was a truly spontaneous, grassroots movement or a manipulated, “astroturf” political maneuver.

unprecedented – (adjective) The year began with a truly unprecedented event -- the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African-American president.  The word “unprecedented” also happens to be a favorite of the Obama administration itself, with Politico finding the term employed by the president some 129 times in his first 10 months in office, while his predecessor, George W. Bush, used the word 262 times during his entire eight years as commander in chief.  On the other hand, Obama is yet to use “misunderestimate,” one of Bush’s favorite faux words, a single time.

wee-weed up – (adjective) President Obama left pundits puzzled when he referred to late summer as a time when folks in Washington, D.C. get "all wee-weed up."  Later, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs offered a definition for the phrase as meaning the sensation of intense fretting for no particular reason.

Here's hoping 2010 gives folks fewer reasons to get all wee-weed up.