Incomplete Glossary

Advertising
There are two types of political campaign advertising: negative, and ineffective. Many first-time challengers to incumbents will initially be reluctant to “go negative” because they think that it “turns people off”. They will soon find themselves “losing the election”. Not using negative ads in a political campaign is like not using your bishops, rooks, knights, or queen in a game of chess. It's an interesting strategy.

Big Oil
I usually try to purchase locally made, artisinal gasoline at small, independent gas stations in Railroad Square and Midtown. They do their own refining, right there in the back of the shop! "Big Oil" is a redundant phrase that is used in negative advertising to denote that ones opponent is on the take.


Campaign Finance Reform
For an incumbent who has the fund-raising advantages of name recognition and a juicy history of quid pro quo legislative favors, this means lowering or otherwise restricting the amount that an individual or organization is allowed to donate to a political campaign, in order that challengers will become even more disadvantaged. When a challenger uses this term, it is usually because they are jealous that the incumbent already has the name recognition and has doled out favors to the big donors. In any case, nobody involved in the process ever works meaningfully toward anything resembling actual reform of the campaign finance system, because they want a slice of that sweet, sweet pie.

Direct Mail
Glossy fliers that fill your mailbox from about Absentee Ballot mailout time onward.  Usually with a picture of your candidate, smiling, outdoors, with her dog.  And her opponent, frowning or smirking, offset by a photo of the flaming Deepwater Horizon and an oil-drenched baby bird.  Or maybe a color picture of your candidate shaking hands with a multi-ethnic trio of firefighters, contrasted with a grainy black-and-white surveillance-camera still of the opponent robbing a liquor store twenty years ago.  These mailers also have words on them.  No one knows what they are.


Family
Every politician will at some point stress the importance of “family”. Photos of the candidate posing with their spouse and offspring are used in political advertising to denote that the candidate is still speaking with them. During the campaign season this might not actually be true, but at least it looks like they're trying.

Green Jobs
The new menial grunt work for the 21st Century, "Green Jobs" will consist of wind-turbine factory assembly-work, installing weather-stripping and solar hot water heaters in low-cost housing, and other low-paying work. 

Jobs
Political candidates generally want you to believe that their policies, once enacted, will “create jobs”. Often this means they want to “provide incentives for small businesses”, which means tax-breaks for their campaign contributors.

Labor
The backbone of America, true heroes. All progressive, liberal, and Democratic candidates for office will claim to be “Pro-Labor.” This actually means “Pro-Union” because progressive, liberal, Democratic candidates for office invariably will seek and often receive endorsements, funding, and votes from Labor Unions, whom they will praise for their constant battle to provide workers with a living wage and health benefits. It does not actually mean that candidates themselves will pay their campaign staff a living wage or provide health benefits. Most candidates prefer to pay their staff nothing at all whenever possible, (they need that money for negative campaign ads) but they may begrudgingly pay wages severely below the market value of their upper-level staff members' skill and educational levels.

Lobbyist
According to Florida's super-strict campaign finance laws, lobbyists are forbidden from actually handing legislators large cartoonish money bags with dollar-signs printed on them, on the house and senate floor during regular session. Beyond that, just about anything goes, restricted only by the conscience of the candidate. No legislator will ever admit to have been, in any way, influenced by any lobbyist that has written them a check for several hundred dollars. And yet business and interest groups still hire lobbyists to do so.

Sign Waving Party
Takes the Yard Sign concept a step further in its ineffectiveness by adding in the time that people spend in organizing and attending a Sign Waving Party.

Small Business Owners
The backbone of America, true heroes. All politicians will claim to either be, have been, or at least deeply love, Small Business Owners. Anyone who has ever worked for a local pizza joint for minimum wage and no health insurance, overtime, 401k package, or respect can tell you that Small Business Owners are not all necessarily the paragons of nobility that politicians make them out to be.

Yard Signs
Usually convey little information other than a candidate's name, are expensive and time-consuming to purchase and distribute, and have a negligible effect on election outcomes. Candidates love them because they love seeing their own names, in print, on people's lawns. And in front of strip-malls. And on corners at intersections. And in front of vacant lots. And bars. There are more than thirty-five candidates currently campaigning for office at the city, county, state, and federal level in Leon County. Figuring an average of one thousand signs per candidate, and three square feet per sign, that is enough yard signs to cover the entire Tallahassee Antique Car Museum. These non-recyclable, non-biodegradable wonders of political ineffectiveness will blight the landscape of Leon County for several weeks after the elections are over, and then they will be buried, forever, in a landfill.