Word: backdrop
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...staged the victor's champagne bash to boot.That's a big part of what's been going on in the stock market since Labor Day. Sure, corporate profits have been humming, and low interest rates have provided punch. But if investors weren't content with the nation's political backdrop it's unlikely stocks would have risen as they have. The Dow Jones industrial average, after sweating through a deadly dull summer, has danced 7% higher in two months and bubbled past...
...backdrop to the latest episodes of who sleeps with whom, there is also the pre-emptive self-outing of divorced Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe. Two weeks after voting for the bill restricting gay marriage, Kolbe, a Republican, went public with his homosexuality, which had been an open secret around Washington, to pre-empt an article that he knew was coming in the national gay magazine Advocate. Kolbe later won a primary race, but with well under the 80% margin he had enjoyed over the same candidate two years...
...Veepstakes is only a backdrop. Gore and Kemp may face each other four years from now, but at this point the real race for both men is against potential rather than present enemies. "For us," says Democrat Bob Kerrey, speaking for those like Dick Gephardt and Chris Dodd who would deny Gore that chance, "how Al does this time will shape the race for next time--and the same is so with Jack for the other side." Why? "Money, mostly." For at least the next two years every person bitten by the presidential bug will be scrambling for political...
...useful international language of the post-colonial era. Many people around the globe are eager to learn English. In fact, most immigrants have at least a working knowledge of English, and the rest go to great lengths in their efforts to acquire the language of this land. Against this backdrop, passing a resolution into law which simply requires conducting government business in English should not seem to be unwarranted or unwelcome...
...month old civil war in Chechnya, Russian security chief Alexander Lebed returned to Moscow on Monday to brief Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on his progress. Although the Lebed negotiated cease-fire remains tenuous but intact, winning the truce may have been the easy part. The backdrop to the meeting between the two men is the criticism Lebed has absorbed in recent days from President Boris Yeltsin and other government officials. A meeting with Chernomyrdin is unlikely to help Lebed's cause; the Prime Minster already distrusts Lebed as an ambitious newcomer. While politicians in Moscow plot, there is already stress...