Word: traction
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...calls to boycott his films haven't gained traction, but with his box-office draw in decline lately, it might be hard to tell if one was going...
...observers believe the turmoil has meant that Rice has been unable to assert the traditional role of National Security Adviser. After September 2002, for example, she set up four interagency task forces, chaired by her staff members, to examine various aspects of Iraq policy. The process never got much traction. Both Defense and State had their planning operations on Iraq (looking at very different things in very different ways), and according to a participant, Pentagon officials regularly skipped meetings of Rice's group that was planning for a postwar Iraq. Rumsfeld, for one, has not always treated Rice with...
...President was a phony who couldn't even figure out what to wear--remember earth tones? He was a liar, an exaggerator--remember how he invented the Internet? He was "uncomfortable in his skin." The anti-Kerry campaign will be a little bit of both, but the real emotional traction will involve character more than ideology. Oh, Kerry will be called a Massachusetts liberal; assorted Kerry votes and sound bites will be summoned to prove that he is a spendthrift pacifist. But "liberal" is an ancient epithet whose power has waned in recent years, and Kerry's votes to limit...
When George W. Bush was running for President four years ago, stories raising questions about his Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard never got much traction. In the Republican primaries, John McCain forbid his staff to exploit the fact that while their guy was being beaten senseless in the Hanoi Hilton, Bush was safe at home, protecting Houston from foreign attack. Al Gore steered clear too. It was not until a week before Election Day in November 2000 that Gore surrogates accused Bush of having gone AWOL--absent without leave--for an entire year while...
...being all about optimism. He is sunshine all year round, unchanged in the vision of hope and help he lays out for voters. The least known and least experienced one in the field was also the only one to pick a plan and not blink when Dean was getting traction, the only one not to get caught slicing someone else's tires. For months his vision of two Americas made whole and fair again felt a little mushy and out of step with these tumultuous times. But by the last days, the Iowa race had turned so ugly that...