More likely, Obama is what might be called a "left conservative," a phrase that Norman Mailer briefly popularized when he ran for mayor of New York, in 1969.
He frames every discussion about education around the conservative buzz phrase "local control," but he also spotlights the need to make sure that less privileged children and minority students are doing better.
Back in Washington, Mr. Gingrich asked a Republican pollster, Robert Teeter, to test public reaction to the phrases "conservative opportunity state" and "liberal welfare state," said Frank Gregorsky, then Mr. Gingrich's chief of staff.
Is there some rule that every writer must force the phrase "conservative" or "right wing" or, in Traub's case, "Fox's liberal-hater in chief" next to Bill O'Reilly's name?
And yes, I prefer to put the oxymoronic phrase "conservative journalism" in quotation marks, since it seems to exist more as an idea than a functioning entity.
With that in mind, Rand Paul's efforts as both a libertarian Republican and a constitutional conservative -- both phrases he used to describe himself in a recent interview with Sean Hannity -- are more interesting, and likely to be more effective, than many have yet given him credit for.
The very phrase "fanatically conservative" is something of an oxymoron.
(Unlike in the U.S., the phrase "centrist conservative" is not yet an oxymoron in Britain).
That means that Mr. Bush will have to flesh out what he means by the phrase "compassionate conservative" with more programmatic detail.
The Tea Party loomed large in Bachmann's address, as did her repeated use of the phrase "constitutional conservative" to describe herself and her belief in limited government.
