Word: plodder
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...moment, Jackson was what he has rarely been before: charismatic. It was the kind of transformation that political victory can work. For most of his long congressional career, Scoop has been a dutiful plodder, wooden and uncomfortable with crowds. He spoke in what was dubbed a "Movietone News voice"-a monotonous, stentorian delivery that politicians employed before public address systems were invented. But in Massachusetts, perhaps sensing victory early on, he began to unbend and even modulate his voice. Crowds became a challenge rather than a concern. When antibusing hecklers forced him off the podium at a Boston stop...
WHEN HERSEY SCREWS up his courage to ask Ford about the intelligence question, the president admits "I kind of resent the word 'plodder.' I would put it another way. I'm a determined person. And if I've got an objective. I'll make hours of sacrifice... I'd rather be a plodder and get someplace than have charisma and not make...
...campaigned with a broom, and now he is using it vigorously. An amiable 200-pounder who looks like a plodder but who moves fast when he has to, Boren, 33, put the Governor's airplane up for sale, trimmed the size of his executive staff, refused to take a $7,500 salary increase (from his current $35,000) and persuaded other officials to give up their legislated raises. Boren also demanded and got bills requiring tougher prosecution of fathers who desert their families and compelling welfare mothers to register for work. He is taking the novel step of making...
...REASON to think Ford has forsaken this goal. As recently as last year, he played an essential role in railroading Republican support for funds for the bombing of Cambodia; when Congress finally voted to stop the bombing, it was almost exclusively with Democratic votes. "Ford may be a plodder," the 1974 Almanac of American Politics noted, citing the votes on Cambodia, "but he is nevertheless an effective, competent minority leader." After his appointment as vice president, Ford continued to defend his record on civil rights (citing his support for the Philadelphia Plan to hire more blacks as a partial counterbalance...
Maurice is a plodder and a sticker who can imagine no fate beyond the inevitable family ascension to Hill and Hall Stock Brokers. He is also, without for the longest time realizing it, a homosexual. At Cambridge he half-consciously involves himself with Clive Durham, a frail intellectual taken to gathering up prizes in the classics. Early on, Durham mistakes Maurice's receptiveness and blurts out, "I love...