30 Jul Snollygoster revival

Taegan Goddard wants to revive the political term snollygoster, n., classically defined by a passage from the October 28, 1895, edition of the Columbus Dispatch (as cited in the OED):

[A] fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnancy.

Harry Truman sparked a previous revival in 1952, when he used the word in a whistle-stop speech at Parkersburg, W. Va.,  complaining about about politicians who make a show of public prayer:

I wish some of these snollygosters would read the New Testament and perform accordingly.

Alas, the OED has entries for neither talknophical or assumnancy, although the University of Windsor English Department once sponsored a poetry series by that name, which it described as, “until now, a nonce phrase with the one known recorded instance of 28 October 1895.”

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan