Word: popularizers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Well, more elections. Big Government is never popular in theory, but the disaster aid, school lunches and prescription drugs that make up Big Government have become wildly popular in practice, especially now that so many people are hurting. Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he's so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party - and he's the bull's-eye of its target audience. But he also said he wouldn't support any cuts in defense, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid - which, along with debt payments, would put more than two-thirds...
...hero with proven bipartisan appeal in 2008, and he lost to an inexperienced black liberal with a funny name. Outside Washington, moderates like Charlie Crist in Florida and Jodi Rell in Connecticut as well as pragmatic conservatives like Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Jon Huntsman in Utah have remained popular despite their brand. They all share an aversion to ideological rigidity: Rell signed a bill legalizing same-sex unions, Crist has pushed an ambitious environmental agenda, Daniels proposed a tax increase, and Huntsman has cautioned Republicans not to obsess about social issues...
...deliver on U.S. demands that he wage a civil war that would be unpopular even with many Pakistanis who oppose the Taliban. Lately, there's been growing speculation that the Administration may be turning its attention to cultivating opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who is currently Pakistan's most popular politician. Widespread reports suggest that the Obama Administration hopes to persuade Zardari and Sharif to share power in a new unity government committed to fighting the Taliban. But like Zardari and his late wife, the slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Sharif has a poor track record in power...
...benchmarks for national reconciliation deemed essential for ending the civil war by strengthening the Sunni political stake in Baghdad. The oil law governing distribution of revenues has not been passed, nor have restrictions been significantly eased on former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist organization (the party remains popular among Sunnis) serving in government. Most alarming, perhaps, has been Maliki's departure from the U.S. strategy of putting former Sunni insurgents on the payroll through the "Awakening" militias that drove al-Qaeda out of many communities. (See pictures of post-surge life in Baghdad...
...plainly no longer representative of those on whose behalf he negotiates - and that means he has precious little ability to deliver on any promises he makes to the Israelis or Americans. His term of office formally expired in January, and that month's Israeli offensive in Gaza reduced his popularity to an all-time low. Were a new Palestinian election to be held today, it's doubtful that Abbas would even win the nomination of his own Fatah party, much less be able to beat a Hamas candidate at the polls. Hamas remains the majority party in the Palestinian legislature...