Hillary Clinton has been portrayed as robotic, someone who is trying to approximate real human emotion.
Ben ZimmerWhen words come out of politician's mouth that are linguistically incorrect, people see it reflecting their intelligence. Sarah Palin was called out for "refudiate," which seemed to combine refute and repudiate. One favourite Bushism was "misunderestimate."
Ben ZimmerDonald Trump speaks extemporaneously, often through stream of consciousness, where it doesn't seem to follow a trajectory.
Ben ZimmerWeaponization of a candidate's words against him or her is something we're seeing a lot. The term Obamacare was used against Obama in a pejorative way, but Obama again reclaimed it.
Ben Zimmer