Word: wonk
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...sense early not only that economics would dominate the race but also that voters longed for a candidate who had thought long enough about the problems to formulate detailed plans and talk specifics. (The campaign thus marked a rare convergence of man and moment: Clinton is a born policy wonk who spawns 5- and 6-point plans as instinctively as other pols reach out for hands to shake.) Sheer dogged persistence kept him slogging past low points at which many another campaigner would have given up. In New Hampshire, when the Governor's campaign looked like a collapsing balloon...
...part, Gore was long criticized for being stiff-necked and arrogant, a policy wonk without humility or a sense of proportion. His brief and unsuccessful run for President in 1988 was seen by some as an example of overweening ambition. Gore's recent book, Earth in the Balance, an environmentalist manifesto and call to arms that includes the idea of banishing the internal-combustion engine "in, say, 25 years," has been blasted by Republicans as elitist nonsense. Quayle told a group of produce farmers in Fresno, California, last week that "with Clinton and Gore, you can say goodbye to water...
...motorcade sped through leafy Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in late September, Al Gore leaned against his orthopedic back pillow, drank bottled water and reflected on the human spirit and his newfound sense of self. How is it that the wooden-tongued policy wonk of 1988 has emerged as an introspective spokesman for the inner child, an icon of the new manhood? Says Gore simply: "I found the connection between my head and my heart...
...Edgily)) No, no, all it means is I've never had a grandchild come to me and say that someone named Wonk...
...Gore, 44, is the younger), they have been in many ways so similar, so driven, so high-test-scores smart, so blue-suit sincere that it once seemed inevitable that their ambitions for the White House would collide. Consider the dualities: both are new-ideas moderates with a policy wonk's love of the intricacies of complex issues; both boast blue-ribbon educational pedigrees and are not ashamed to show it; both are Southern Baptists who married strong, assertive blond women; and both, having achieved political success early in life, have never made a secret of their zeal for higher...