A politician's primary expressive motif is ambiguity and its purpose is alchemical. The recipe: tease from his constituents a bit of ignorance, a dash of apathy and a pinch of confusion, toss it all into a cauldron of deception, stir it with the ladle of insincerity and mutter a few broken promises. The transmogrified result is the consent of his victims to be exploited and that is worth more than any gold he could conjure or steal.