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About the Political Dictionary

Taegan Goddard is the creator of the Political Dictionary.

He is also the founder of many popular political websites, including Political Wire, Political Job Hunt and Electoral Vote Map.

Goddard spent more than a decade on Wall Street as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he also served as a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won – Now What?: How Americans Can Make Democracy Work from City Hall to the White House, a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties.

His essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University.

He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Additional Contributors

Political journalists Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark contributed additional terms and definitions to the political dictionary. 

McCutcheon is an editor at Axios and has covered Washington since 1995. He was co-author of the 2012 and 2014 editions of Almanac of American Politics and co-editor of Politics in America 2010.

Mark is the managing editor of the Washington Examiner Magazine and was previously a senior editor at Politico and editor-in-chief of Campaigns & Elections.

They are both the authors of Dog Whistles, Walk-Backs, and Washington Handshakes: Decoding the Jargon, Slang, and Bluster of American Political Speech as well as Doubletalk: The Language, Code, and Jargon of a Presidential Election.

All material is used with permission.