Visual Description: Politician, doing that dopey fist-thing.
ZEDDO = DOZED, CHANO = NACHO, FACETF = AFFECT, RERVID = DRIVER — Giving us: DDNACATDIE
Clue/Question: The politician spoke to his dinner companion because he was a . . .
Answer: CANDID DATE

English: A map based on the candidates running in the 2012 US Senate election. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(Not bad! Very timely, being election day n’ all. I hate that dopey fist-thing they all seem to do these days. It’s so practiced, and so phoney. These focus group, image-makers decided that this is the least offensive/most acceptable of hand gestures, and virtually every politician does it now. It’s nonsense. It’s rubbish. It’s poppycock.
We had some very good clue word jumbling, today. And, it looks like both “dozed” and “nacho” are new clue words. “Nacho” seems a little familiar. I really should download the most recent clue word database that ralis95 sent out. It’s hanging out somewhere in my email. The answer letter layout was nicely cryptic. And, the usual top-notch cartoon. We never heard from Jeff who the two guys from the golf course might have been. They weren’t the standard cartoon figures. They were definitely a little more caricature. I’m still cautiously optimistic about the election, but it’s still a very tight race. Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
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This was a hoot. It took me a few minutes on the jumbled words, then still had driver wrong. I put down derive–mispelled! So, when I checked it today against the answers in the paper, I found my error. Then I figured out the puzzle answer from looking at the puzzle and thought that the guys missed it — a great answer would have been candidate. Then, it took me a few to get the answer unjumbled only to find “candid date”! Very, very clever.
YUR:
Interesting that CHANO produces both NACHO & ANCHO (the first being a mexican derivative corn chip and the other a mexican derivative chile pepper), but since your dictionary doesn’t show ANCHO, while my southwest oriented dictionary built into my iMac does, I guess I’ll just have to list both words in the database as duplicates and let Hoyt decide how to use it in the future.
p.s. Do open and use the current database – I sent it to all three of you special recipients on 10/2, but no one has acknowledged receipt – did it not get through?
@ LindaLee,
The winding road usually gets you there too! It just takes a little longer.
@ ralis95,
Whenever words like ANCHO arrive I always fall back on Merriam-Websters. They do cover the word, but only as part of the Spanish to English translation. Whereas NACHO shows up in their regular dictionary. But, it’s your database, sir. You handle the word anyway you see fit.
You already know I got it. I can’t comment on the guys who make money from these games. Just so far behind in my email, bud.
— YUR