As the plethora of presidential candidates continues to swell, sending debate planners into conniptions and launching heavy breathing over meaningless polls, the lineups of both parties feature what has become a political certainty: one-time presidential nomination hopefuls taking another shot to win it all.
Or, as they are sometimes dubbed: bridesmaids.
So let’s clear up something right now: there are bridesmaids, there are maids of honor and then there are others. Please — in a campaign that will no doubt be filled with rhetoric, bloviation and Pinocchio-worthy “facts,” it is imperative that we get the language of the horse race and its jockeys (whoops, wrong cliche) correct before the first cattle call debate (darn, wrong cliche again).
Those who ran for a nomination before and came in second — the runner-ups — have received the sobriquet of “bridesmaids.” That is not fair nor accurate.
Those individuals should be called the “maid of honor.” The other seekers of the nomination — those also-rans — are the bridesmaids and part of a larger wedding party
For the entire column please go here
