ward-heeler

"It's an anachronism dating back to the old ward-heeler, patronage-based operation."

Chicago Mayor Trashes Politics of Waste Removal Douglas Belkin 2011

Forty-seven years and no real employment record except as a ward-heeler in Cook County.

On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2008

Not if one wishes to be considered a statesman instead of a small-time ward-heeler.

McCain's Last Campaign Stand: Christopher Hitchens Hitchens, Christopher 2008

But Smith was rather too exotic in a number of ways, with his New York accent and his ward-heeler air.

People Before Prophets 2007

The Foley affair has been particularly vexing for House Speaker Dennis Hastert — a politician in the Tammany Hall ward-heeler mode that only 19th-century political cartoonist Thomas Nast could have dreamed up.

The President's Delicate Condition Carter, Graydon 2006

WOODWARD: Well, I suspect, I don't know, but if you look at this, that Novak got his sources to come forward to the prosecutor and say, yes, we told this to Novak, but we did not know she was an undercover person at all, and that Novak has written that he used the word "operative" because that's something he frequently uses to describe any kind of ward-heeler or politician.

CNN Transcript Jul 11, 2005 2005

Telling half-truths and sowing confusion is the realm of the ward-heeler, not the servant.

Archive 2005-05-29 Randy Smith 2005

Telling half-truths and sowing confusion is the realm of the ward-heeler, not the servant.

Think For Yourself Randy Smith 2005

A ward-heeler cadging votes for a Milwaukee alderman never wheedled more gingerly.

The Ivory Trail Mundy, Talbot, 1879-1940 1920

I guess I've been what you might call kind of an assistant boss pretty much all my life; at least, ever since I could vote; and I was something of a ward-heeler even before that.

In the Arena Stories of Political Life Booth Tarkington 1907