Opinion: A campaign’s new words: Billary, Huckaboom, Day One, Spitzered...

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Somebody once said words are important. So let’s compile a list of words and phrases, new and old, that have emerged in this seemingly never-ending war of words in this seemingly never-ending presidential campaign that’s still got seven whole months to go exactly from today. But who’s counting?

Here’s the list so far:

Jeremiad: A very angry sermon that calls for at least repentance, maybe more. Evoked in the outrage over some extreme sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and his family, who claimed to have missed or slept through the angriest ones for two decades.

Swiftboating: Left over from the 2004 campaign when a very fast boat hit a dock in rural Arkansas. Just kidding. It’s really when one group unafilliated with but sympathetic to one candidates launches a smear campaign that the other candidate feels is unfair or untrue.

Red-phone: Hillary Clinton’s famous television ad that asked if the Batphone rings, which candidate is best prepared to take the crisis call in the White House? The ad, which played on national security concerns, helped focus voter attention on the candidates’ resumes and may have helped her win the popular vote in Ohio and Texas. It’s become much-parodied since. Turns out the film was actually shot for a railroad commercial years ago and the little girl, now kinda grown up, doesn’t support Clinton.

Superdelegate: America’s new VIPs. This group of alleged dignitaries, usually elected Democrats, may help decide who gets their party’s nomination for president by breaking the DD: Delegate Deadlock. Their influence could be compared to that of the judges on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ Besides votes from the public, judges’ scores play a prominent role in who wins on DWTS.

Spitzered: To be spitzered means to spend years prosecuting the nefarious doings of others in order to be elected governor of a populous state only to be exposed as a hypocritical philanderer who paid a prostitute named Kristen way, way too much money to meet him in Washington for some nefarious doings. Connected to presidential politics because the ensuing resignation by the original Spitzer cost Clinton one precious superdelegate vote (see above) and....

prompted the regrettable removal of Kristen’s MySpace page including her swimsuit photograph, which you may have noticed above.

Huckaboom: The surge in popularity Mike Huckabee experienced late in 2007, thanks in part to an ad featuring manimal Chuck Norris. The boom eventually faded and the former Arkansas governor exited the race in March 2008 while Chuckie, quite possibly the worst actor in the history of drama since the Greeks invented it, returned to his exercise machine on a Texas ranch.

Fred Man Walking: Used to describe Fred Thompson’s lackluster campaign. Thompson dropped out of the race in January after often putting in three whole hours a day of campaigning by phone.

Billary: The one-two Clinton punch. Used to describe the presence of both Hillary Clinton and her hubby, ex-President Bill Clinton, on the campaign trail. Later in the primary season a debate ensued as to whether Bill’s you-listen-here-Buster style was hurting or helping his wife’s stubborn candidacy.

McBush: The Democratic Party’s hopeful way of labeling Republican nominee John McCain’s election to what Democrats try to portray as a third Bush term, even though the two don’t really like each other that much and would never choose to, say, watch ‘The Sopranos’ together.

Obamatopoeia: Words, such as Omentum, to describe Obama’s campaign success among crowds. Obamania describes the craze. In their Encyclopedia Baracktannica, Slate Obamafied several terms including Barackstar and Baracktoberfest (parties and rallies leading up to the general election).

Toe-tapping: Sometimes called ‘craiging,’ tied to the case of Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who was arrested for and pleaded guilty to lewd behavior in a Minneapolis men’s room after tapping his foot in a toilet stall to signal an interest in homosexual sex. Caused millions of American males to stop listening to their Ipods in the rest room.

Change, Change, Change: Usually a verb in its transformative mode, it became an all-purpose noun, adjective and mantra. On the trail, candidates said they were ‘of change’ or they would ‘bring change.’ The satirical Onion got a national laugh with its Obama-inspired, two-faced headline: ‘Black Guy Asks Nation for Change.’

YouTubed: To have a video, almost always embarrassing, plopped onto that website for the entire world to watch and giggle at. Often used to illustrate a candidate’s hypocrisy or to remind, say, someone like NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that, by golly, she suddenly remembers days after she should that there actually was no sniper fire when she landed with Hillary Clinton at the Tuzla Air Base in 1996.

Other nominees:

McCane: Used to describe McCain’s senior status. If he won the presidency, the former POW would be 72 at inauguration, the oldest president to take office though still younger than, say, Ron Paul or Ralph Nader, who’s running again because he can.

Omance: Oprah’s everlasting affection for a presidential candidate, specifically Obama. Oprah has helped raise money for Obama and featured him on her cult-like TV talk show, based in Chicago although its viewers have been uncovered all over and her house is really in California.

Paulunteer: A term used to describe the unusually dedicated followers of Rep. Paul of Texas, who raised large sums of money for their libertarian-like leader and turned out some 800,000 Republican primary votes for him. Many Paulunteers were first-time political campaigners who would scour the Internet at all hours to find places to praise Paul or denounce his omission from a story. They may even be watching us right now. The GOP convention is being held in St. Paul, Minn. in honor of the congressman.

Day One: This is the first day of a presidential administration, which would be, let’s see, sometime around noon next Jan. 20, when the newly-installed commander-in-chief is supposed to be ready to take decisive action such as waving to passing marchers at his/her inaugural parade no doubt in a miserably cold drizzle. New presidents used to take the oath in March, but that was deemed too springlike.

O.K., now it’s your turn. Let’s see your nominees for new word or phrase from the current campaign season. (And no one better ever say ‘24/7’ or ‘at the end of the day’).

--Andrew Malcolm and James Oliphant

James Oliphant is a writer for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune Washington Bureau. Photo Credit: MySpace via AFP/Getty Images