More excrement than sex

There is actually no vomit in the scene the authors describe as “vomitous.” It’s just their way of writing vividly. They’re not snobs. They actually have a weakness for colorful vernacular, with a special fondness for a particular bodily function. And it’s not the usual one. The many references to excrement — people serving it to one another on a bun, people burying one another in it and so on — are . . . are . . . help me, I need a word here. Well, they’re vomitous. This may be the first political book ever with more excrement than sex.

They are fond of retrograde (old-­fashioned) or simply odd similes and metaphors. For Senator John McCain to endorse Romney “would have seemed as likely as a terrier reciting Tennyson.” The economic adviser Gene Sperling was “enamored of his work in the way that Dean Martin enjoyed martinis.” And alliteration: McCain’s endorsement “was based on a mixture of caprice, calculation and comparative chagrin.” President Obama and Vice President Biden developed a “personal peachiness” (i.e., they liked each other), after starting out as “chalk and Camembert” (i.e., they didn’t like each other). The usual expression is “chalk and cheese” — I don’t know what that “Camembert” is about. Romney didn’t like the Huntsman family and the Huntsmans “vice versa’d the vitriol.” But the authors don’t always get it precisely right. “Major-domo” means a servant or butler — not, as they seem to think, a bigshot “muckety-muck.”

George Bush the Elder and the Younger refer to themselves as “41” and “43.” But do Clinton and Obama refer to themselves as “42” and “44”? And do people really call the Oval Office “the Oval” for short? That is how Halperin and Heilemann refer to them, and their workplace. Obama is POTUS. The first lady is FLOTUS. Obama’s campaign staff is referred to as “the Obamans” or “Obamaworld” or, bizarrely, “Chicago” (where the campaign headquarters were). Romney’s entourage is “Romneyworld” or “Boston.” Romney himself is “the Bay Stater.” When Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey enters the drama, he and his staff are referred to as “Trenton.” It’s like Shakespeare (in this sense only) — the merging of the nobleman and his seat: Lancaster, Norfolk and so on.