Word: spreading
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since Wyoming had not elected a Democrat to Congress since 1976, a Thomas defeat would have been especially painful for the G.O.P. The high symbolic stakes made for a vituperative campaign. Thomas' supporters spread a false rumor that his Democratic opponent, State Senator John Vinich, had filed a falsified report about an automobile accident. Vinich may have blown the race with exaggerated ads accusing the Republican of being soft on crime...
...before Thursday's protest, there was every indication that the government was ready to crush even the smallest sprig of dissent. On Tuesday Premier Li Peng and President Yang Shangkun reportedly informed Deng that the movement had spread "to high schools, the countryside and even among the workers." Deng, whose sole official government title is Chairman of the Central Military Commission but whose ironhanded control of the government has led the students to dub him the "Emperor," agreed that the protesters intended to overthrow the Communist Party. Referring to the turmoil that has accompanied political reform elsewhere in the socialist...
...after the Aoki story broke, Takeshita came to the conclusion that he could not keep his job; public disapproval was so strong that his government's popularity rating had plummeted to a mortifying 3.6%. "I have decided to step down," Takeshita told his countrymen, "to take responsibility for the spread of political distrust...
...father was actually kind of an atheist. He sold crucifixes and 3-D pictures of Jesus door to door. Our house was full of them. You'd walk by and Jesus would blink or his hands would spread out. My mother liked Mormons. I'd go to church on Sunday and synagogue on Saturday. Later on, when I became a member and got baptized, my mother told me not to take it too far, that it was just the way we stayed safe...
More than once, Mikhail Gorbachev has shown himself to be the most dazzling of political magicians. So when word spread that the Communist Party Central Committee had been summoned last week for a special plenum to discuss "organizational questions," many Soviets wondered just what the General Secretary had up his sleeve this time. Gorbachev did not disappoint them. ) Without resorting to repression, arrest or personal vilification, he gracefully purged 74 full members of the 301-member Central Committee. Never before in Soviet history had such a large housecleaning been executed so painlessly...