Word: runner
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...although he continues to lag behind former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Tennessee Senator and actor Fred Thompson, and Arizona Senator John McCain in national polls, the decision by all three of those leading candidates to skip the straw-poll left Romney unchallenged for the position of front-runner...
...front-runner to be South Africa's next President is an unconventional candidate. Since 2005, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma has been sacked as Deputy President, tried and acquitted of rape and embroiled in a corruption scandal over defense contracts - which might yet come to court. (Zuma maintains his innocence.) He has somewhere between three and six wives (he refuses to confirm the exact number) and a total of 17 children by nine women. At rallies of his supporters, he sings the Zulu anthem: Bring Me My Machine...
...time in places like Florida and California, which have moved their primaries forward onto the heels of the early contests. Giuliani seemed to be calculating that he would have a better go of it in big states, where his 9/11 fame - which has made him the front-runner in all the national polls - would give him an edge over the rest of the field, and where more diverse groups of voters might forgive his liberal stance on social issues like abortion and gay rights...
...caucus voters. Thompson advisers decided that the risk of underperforming at either of these high-profile events was too great - and outweighed any advantages that would be gained by launching the campaign over the summer. As one Thompson partisan noted, John McCain's spectacular fall from Establishment front-runner to underfunded underdog proves how hard it is to sustain a lead, month after month, without faltering...
...tier whose poll numbers have been inching upward since the beginning of the year. This is especially true in the lead-off states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where he currently tops the field, a fact that causes some strategists to declare Romney the race's "real front-runner." It is not an unreasonable claim if you consider national polls more or less irrelevant. "You have to accept that Iowa and New Hampshire are still going to have an impact," says Romney spokesman Kevin Madden. "We're far ahead of anybody... in terms of organizing in those states...