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I was a bit puzzled to read the following sentence in the article titled “Obama showering Ohio with attention and money” in September 26 Washington Post:

“It goes without saying that, every four years, presidential candidates shower battleground states with attention. This time around, it’s Obama in Ohio, doling out the perks of office — all the time.”

“This time around” should refer to a specific point of time in contrast to the folowing “all the time,” which is separated by em dash. Don’t “this time around” and “all the time” in the same sentence contradict each other?

Though I think “all the time” means every four-year routines of every presidential candidate, is this a perfect English sentence? It may sound nitpicking, but aren’t some words missing, or redundant in the last line of the above sentence?

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  • You can do something all the time for a limited time, so I don't see the problem.
    – gam3
    Commented Sep 26, 2012 at 20:15
  • @gam3. The writer said “It goes without saying 'every four year'” in the preceding line, and “this time around” in the following line. Does he need to deliberately add to “all the time” when he already said “every four year”? Isn't it redundant. Isn't it right "without saying - 'all the time.'"
    – Yoichi Oishi
    Commented Sep 27, 2012 at 0:29
  • As in once a year I take a week to watch TV all the time.
    – gam3
    Commented Sep 27, 2012 at 1:53
  • “Every four-to-five years” I have a stroke of back-pain. This means I’m suffering a backpain intermittently, but not “all the time.”
    – Yoichi Oishi
    Commented Sep 27, 2012 at 11:12

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The phrasing of that paragraph is clumsy; it first implies that presidential candidates give swing states a lot of attention only when an election is coming up, then turns around and says Obama is giving largesse to Ohio all the time (during his term of office) instead of only during the campaign season. Of course, that is the what the first four paragraphs of the article said: that the Obama administration has routed some of the largest manufacturing center grants, largest tax credits, and largest SBA loans to Ohio.

In short, nothing is grammatically wrong with the sentence, but it is poorly organized.

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  • I think the all the time is likely referring to the fact that nearly all the commercials on television are political ads.
    – gam3
    Commented Sep 27, 2012 at 1:58
  • @gam3, I think it's clear that “doling out the perks of office — all the time” is referring to political spoils or largesse, rather than to political ads. But if you have a reading of the article that makes sense out of referring to political ads, go ahead and add it as an answer.
    – James Waldby - jwpat7
    Commented Sep 27, 2012 at 2:08

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