Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 757, Getting Political Support.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 757.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Welcome back.
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This episode is a dialogue using vocabulary related to politics and getting support getting money from people to support your political campaign.
Let's get started.
Okay, your schedule today is very busy.
First, you're meeting with a group of constituents concerned about the environment.
Then you're speaking to a group of factory workers.
At noon, you'll be having lunch with a group of high-powered donors.
Don't think of it as pandering.
Think of it as rallying the troops.
People in this state need a leader, and you're their great white hope.
You can make a difference when you get elected, but first things first, you need to get elected.
Ready to go?
I'm glad you brought that up.
Your meeting with the Committee on Redistricting is this afternoon at 2 o'clock.
I'm sorry I asked.
Helen begins by saying to Mikael, Okay, your schedule today is very busy.
First, you're meeting with a group of constituents concerned about the environment.
Your constituents, C-O-N-S-T-I-T-U-E-N-T-S, are people that you represent as an elected government official.
A constituent is someone who votes for you and is a person you represent in say, the Senate or the House of Representatives or the city council or any official government body.
If you are a representative, then the people you represent are your constituents.
Mikael has a meeting with his constituents or at least some of them, who are concerned about the environment.
Helen says then you're speaking to a group of factory workers, people who work in a company, in a place where they physically make something.
They may make tables or chairs or those little dresses that people put on their cats, anything like that.
At noon, Helen says, you'll be having lunch with a group of high-power donors.
High power means very important, very influential, very powerful.
A donor, D-O-N-O-R, is a person who gives money to an organization.
It could be to a political candidate.
It could be to a school.
It could be to a church, a university.
Any of those groups or people could have people who give them money and those people we would call donors.
We have donors here at ESL Podcast, people who give us money in order to help us continue, and we very much appreciate it.
The verb would be, of course, to donate, D-O-N-A-T-E.
Donors donate money, or donations.
You could say donors donate donations.
Donations refers to the money that donors donate.
Okay, this has nothing to do with donuts, which you can have with coffee.
Mikael says, when I signed on as a candidate I had no idea I'd have to pander to every group out there to gain their support.
To sign on is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to agree to do something, to register or put your name down as someone who will do a certain thing.
Mikael says, when he signed on, when he agreed to be a candidate, a person who wants to win an elected office, an elected position, He had no idea that he would have to pander P-A-N-D-E-R.
Here.
To pander means to be very nice to someone, to do something that someone wants, because you want to get their money or you want to get their support.
Politicians do this all the time.
They pander to people.
They try to be nice to them so that those people will support them or will give them money.
Interestingly enough, the verb to pander is also used to describe the crime of someone who arranges for you to meet a prostitute, someone we would call a pimp or a madam.
So there's some connection there, I think.
Mikael says that he had no idea he had to pander to every group out there in order to gain their support, to get their support and their money.
Helen says, don't think of it as pandering.
Pandering definitely has a negative connotation to it.
Think of it as rallying the troops.
To rally a group of people is to get them excited about something.
R-A-L-L-Y.
The troops normally refers to a group of soldiers, someone in the army.
But here it just refers to the people who are your supporters, who want you to do well, who want to get you elected.
So to rally the troops means to motivate, to encourage, to get people excited to do something.
People in this state, Helen says, need a leader and you're their great white hope.
The expression great white hope means in general, someone who will be a leader who will achieve great things even though it's difficult, a symbol of something or someone who will be great in the future.
Mikael says I decided to run to participate in these elections because I wanted to be a voice of reason in the partisan bickering.
Mikael decided to try to become a representative or elected to whatever this office is that he's trying to gain, because he wanted to be a voice of reason.
Reason is using your intelligence, your intellect, right?
To be a voice of reason is to be a person who presents rational, logical ideas, someone who doesn't act just emotionally, someone who thinks about what they are doing.
That's a voice of reason.
Mikael wants to be the voice of reason in the partisan bickering.
Partisan P-A-R-T-I-S-A-N is when you have very strong opinions of one political party, someone who doesn't want to change their opinions, who supports their political party, and they won't change their mind.
That would be someone who is partisan.
To bicker B-I-C-K-E-R means to fight, to disagree, especially in a way that isn't very pleasant, that isn't very nice.
So bickering as a noun would be fighting.
Mikael says, I didn't sign on.
I didn't agree to be a poster boy for my political party.
A poster boy or a poster girl we might even say a poster child is a person who represents an organization, who symbolizes the organization.
It's sometimes used to refer to someone who is a good example of a certain idea or a certain belief.
Sometimes organizations that are trying to get money for people who need help, who are, may have pictures of a person who has that disease on a piece of paper, a large piece of paper that has their name on it, the name of the organization asking for help.
Well, a large piece of paper like that is called a poster, and that's where we get the expression poster boy or poster child.
Mikael doesn't want to be a poster boy for his political party, for his organization of members who support a certain political belief.
Helen says, you can make a difference.
That is, you can do something important.
When people vote for you so that you win your position.
But first things first.
The expression first things first means...
You have to put things in priority and start with the most important thing first.
First things first.
Helen says, you need to get elected.
Ready to go?
Mikael says what happened to the good old days when all you had to do was a little gerrymandering to get elected?
Good old days is an expression referring to the way things used to be.
Things that you remember favorably.
You remember them being better than they are right now.
So I may say something like oh the good old days when you could go to the beach and no one would be talking on their cell phone, or go to a baseball game and everyone would watch the game instead of texting their friends or waving to the camera.
The good old days, the days when things were better.
Mikael says what happened to the good old days when all you had to do, when the only thing you needed to do was a little gerrymandering?
To gerrymander G-E-R-R-Y, M-A-N-D-E-R is to make the lines on a map for a specific area of a government representative in such a way that you make sure that only certain kinds of people will win in that area.
It's somewhat complicated in american politics every 10 years or so, as the population moves, increases or decreases, Each state has to draw the boundaries of the elected officials.
So, for example, here in Los Angeles we may have seven or eight people that go to Congress representing us.
Each one represents a specific area of Los Angeles.
But where you draw the lines dividing those areas will make a big difference in who gets elected.
Gerrymandering is drawing those lines in such a way that you guarantee that only a certain kind of person will get elected, someone from either a conservative political party or a liberal political party, for example.
Helen says, I'm glad you brought that up.
I'm glad you mentioned that.
Your meeting with the committee on redistricting is this afternoon at 2 o'clock.
Redistricting is that process I just talked about every 10 years or so, where the government, the state governments, have to go through and decide where the lines are going to be.
So that's exactly what is happening here.
Redistricting.
Mikael says, I'm sorry I asked.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Okay, your schedule today is very busy.
First you're meeting with a group of constituents concerned about the environment.
Then you're speaking to a group of factory workers.
At noon you'll be having lunch with a group of high-powered donors.
When I signed on as a candidate, I had no idea I'd have to pander to every group out there to gain their support.
Don't think of it as pandering.
Think of it as rallying the troops.
People in the state need a leader, and you're their great white hope.
I decided to run because I wanted to be a voice of reason in the partisan bickering.
I didn't sign on to be a poster boy for my political party.
You can make a difference when you get elected.
But first things first, you need to get elected.
Ready to go?
I'm glad you brought that up.
Your meeting with the Committee on Redistricting is this afternoon at 2 o'clock.
I'm sorry I asked.
We hope that ESL Podcast makes a difference in your English.
If it does, you can thank our wonderful script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
