Pawns of the Court

 A Baby Step Away From Partisanship
http://www.freep.com/article/20121007/COL04/310070142/Brian-Dickerson-A-baby-step-away-from-partisanship

With diction, imagery, syntax, and language, Brian Dickerson bares the ridiculousness of the campaign for supreme court justice.

Dickerson's diction portrays the fragile border between partisan and nonpartisan, or at least, what passes for nonpartisan. In the title, Dickerson implies that candidates are extremely close to being partisans. The diction choice "baby" carries with it connotations of fragility and smallness, showing not only that the candidates are fragile and small against the world, but just how easily "nonpartisan" can become partisan. In the end of the article, Dickerson uses slang such as "stinkin'" to deflate the political parties, bringing "'em" to a low standing for their manipulation of the nonpartisan court system. The slang is also used as an empowerment of the candidates, as Dickerson tells them to come out on top, telling those parties that "you're through going to their stinkin' convention." From fragile and weak to grim and victorious, Dickerson carries readers through the court process.

The court process begins with the endorsement interviews. According to Dickerson, candidates "arrive... every election cycle looking sheepish, shell-shocked or simply weary with the absurd hypocrisy of their plight..." Dickerson's imagery is used to show the complete inferiority of candidates against the world of party dominance. With the image shell-shocked, we realize candidates are hollowed out, a shell of their former selves, light and easy to manipulate. It is as if they have undergone self-transformation via some horrid, traumatic experience. It shouldn't be like that. It shouldn't be "absurd hypocrisy." For a nonpartisan court, why should candidates have to become partisan? Why should they "kowtow to the power brokers and the union locals and the tea party wing nuts who wouldn't know a habeas hearing from a ham sandwich?"

Because the parties own the money, and money means campaigns. It means getting on the ballot and being advertised. Yet, as Dickerson points out, candidates have no control over what goes into those ads. They "complain that their campaigns are being promoted, or their opponents vilified, in ads they have never seen that are financed by people they don't know." Dickerson uses syntax to illustrate the horror of the entire thing. "Sometimes, I think they're lying. Sometimes, I suspect they're telling the truth. I haven't decided which possibility is scarier," Dickerson says. Dickerson's parallelism makes his second sentence all the more dark, all the more twisted. His diction of "suspect" usually has a connotation of sneaky, dark things, which adds to the suspense and is non-sequitur with the conclusion of the sentence, the word "truth," which has a connotation of goodness.

Finally, Dickerson's language emphasizes the sickness of the entire thing. "Because if candidates are as much in the dark as they claim, it only confirms the suspicion that they are mere pawns in a game controlled by others..." Dickerson says, on the campaign ads. Of course this is all figurative language, because candidates aren't really in darkness, nor are they shaped like pawns from a game of chess. But being a pawn in a game is horrific in a way that only clowns can compete with.

Dickerson effectively portrays the sick hypocrisy of the campaign race for court. In the end, though, he comes out swinging, encouraging candidates to "tell 'em" that they won't be part of that "stinkin' convention." Despite its laying bear of the truth behind a nonpartisan court, Dickerson's article still has that note of encouragement, of hope, that says that even pawns can win the game.