Vice President Dick Cheney, after accepting his party's renomination, gave a nod to the pulling-up-by-the-bootstraps topic when he mentioned that his grandparents had lived in a railroad car.

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He ordered the party to stop accepting contributions from groups that lobby the federal government.

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The term itself arose out of the difficulty of convicting someone of accepting a bribe from a third party when nobody else suffered a tangible loss.

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