whip cream in the cherry, wide soul

[Benjamin Zimmer]

>From the NY Times, quoting Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri on her
endorsement of Barack Obama:

-----
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/politics/13cnd-campaign.html
"A lot of people talk about his ability to give a great speech. And
there's no question that he is truly gifted by God with an ability to
speak to people in a way that touches them," Ms. McCaskill said. "To
me, that is the whip cream in the cherry. To me, this is a man who has
incredible intellectual heft, he's a very smart guy with a wide soul
who is not afraid to figure out a new and different way to tackle
problems."
-----

"Whip cream in the cherry" is an interesting image -- "cherry on the
whip(ped) cream" would probably make more sense for most people. And
"wide soul" was also a new one on me. Are these just McCaskill's
idiosyncrasies?


--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org