Pelota in California Politics

[John McChesney-Young]

An article by John Simerman in yesterday's _Contra Costa [California]
Times_, "Woman wanted a word with Arnold," opened with:

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/content_syndication/local_news/6937917.htm

MODESTO -Who was that woman in red?

And what's her connection with Arnold?

No one knows, it seems. But the sudden appearance of a woman at a
rally, pleading to speak to Arnold Schwarzenegger about a "very, very
personal" issue, threw a new pelota into the media scrum that forms
around a celebrity candidate.

(end quote)

I had not known the term before, but found that it's a synonym for
the sport jai allai and a word for the ball used in it. I suppose a
pelota into a scrum is faster than the traditional wrench in the
works.

A check of the web via Google turned up about 584,000 total hits for
the term; English results narrowed it to 21,400. Switching to Google
News generated only 13 unduplicated hits, of which one was a personal
name, one a place name, and the others apparently directly or
indirectly (via a movie title) related to the sport. None had the
transferred sense of the CCT article.

John
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*** John McChesney-Young  **  panis at pacbell.net  **   Berkeley,
California, U.S.A.  ***