Old English hiertan "give heart to," from heart (n.). Shakespeare used it as "take to heart" (c. 1600); 1866 of cabbages, "to form a heart." Meaning "to love" is by 1993, from the popular New York state tourism campaign that used the heart symbol in place of the word "love."

1863, American English, from lobby (n.) in the political sense + -ist.

[A] strong lobbyist will permit himself to lose heavily at the poker-table, under the assumption that the great Congressman who wins the stake will look leniently upon the little appropriation he means to ask for. [George A. Townsend, "Events at the National Capital and the Campaign of 1876," Hartford, Conn., 1876]

also cream-puff, by 1859 as a kind of light confection, from cream (n.) + puff (n.). In figurative sense of "ineffectual person, weakling, sissy," it is recorded by 1935.

I remember my first campaign. My opponent called me a cream puff. That's what he said. Well, I rushed out and got the baker's union to endorse me. [Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., 1987]

As a salesman's word, "something that is a tremendous bargain," it is from 1940s.

also egg-head, 1907, "bald person," from egg (n.) + head (n.). Sense of "intellectual" is attested from 1918, among Chicago newspapermen; popularized by U.S. syndicated columnist Stewart Alsop in 1952 in reference to Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign.

Adlai Stevenson once told what it was like to be the rare intellectual in politics. "Via ovicapitum dura est," he said, the way of the egghead is hard. [New York Times, Oct. 28, 1982]

c. 1400, "vegetables;" 1690s, "freshly cut branches used for decoration," from green (n.). Meaning "ecology political party" first recorded 1978, from German die Grünen (West Germany), an outgrowth of Grüne Aktion Zukunft "Green Campaign for the Future," a mainly anti-nuclear power movement, and/or grüne Listen "green lists" (of environmental candidates). Green (adj.) in the sense of "environmental" is attested in English from 1971; Greenpeace, the international conservation and environmental protection group, is from 1971.

Old English triewð (West Saxon), treowð (Mercian) "faith, faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty; veracity, quality of being true; pledge, covenant," from Germanic abstract noun *treuwitho, from Proto-Germanic treuwaz "having or characterized by good faith," from PIE *drew-o-, a suffixed form of the root *deru- "be firm, solid, steadfast." With Germanic abstract noun suffix *-itho (see -th (2)).

Sense of "something that is true" is first recorded mid-14c. Meaning "accuracy, correctness" is from 1560s. English and most other IE languages do not have a primary verb for "speak the truth," as a contrast to lie (v.). Truth squad in U.S. political sense first attested in the 1952 U.S. presidential election campaign.

At midweek the Republican campaign was bolstered by an innovation—the "truth squad" ..., a team of senators who trailed whistle-stopping Harry Truman to field what they denounced as his wild pitches. [Life magazine, Oct. 13, 1952]

Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter. [Milton, "Areopagitica," 1644]

"to cheat, to drive a hard bargain," 1824, from Jew (n.) (compare gyp, welsh, etc.). "Though now commonly employed without direct reference to the Jews as a race, it is regarded by them as offensive and opprobrious" [Century Dictionary, 1902]. The campaign to eliminate it in early 20c. was so successful that people also began to avoid the noun and adjective, using Hebrew instead.

Now I'll say 'a Jew' and just the word Jew sounds like a dirty word and people don't know whether to laugh or not. [Lenny Bruce, "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People," 1965]

"of or pertaining to a peninsula; in the form of a peninsula; carried on in a peninsula," 1610s, from peninsula + -ar or from French péninsulaire (16c.). Related: Peninsularity.

The Peninsular War was the successful military operations in Spain and Portugal 1808-14 by the British and allied local forces, largely under Wellington, to drive the French from the Iberian peninsula. The Peninsular Campaign in the American Civil War was the unsuccessful attempt by the Army of the Potomac, under McClellan, in the spring and early summer of 1862 to capture Richmond, Va., by advancing up the peninsula between the Rappahannock and James rivers.

"uneducated, non-professional; non-clerical," early 14c., from Old French lai "secular, not of the clergy" (12c., Modern French laïque), from Late Latin laicus, from Greek laikos "of the people," from laos "(the common) folk, the people, the crowd; the military; a tribe," in the New Testament especially "the Jewish people," also "the laity," a word of unknown origin. Beekes writes that it is "most often connected with" Hittite lahh- "campaign" and Old Irish laech "warrior," but that the form "is rather Pre-Greek, and has a Pre-Greek suffix -it(o)-. In Middle English, contrasted with learned, a sense revived 1810 in contrast to expert. Laic is a more modern borrowing directly from Late Latin.

"to discredit a candidate for some position by savaging his or her career and beliefs," 1987, from name of U.S. jurist Robert H. Bork (1927-2012), whose Supreme Court nomination in 1987 was rejected after an intense counter-campaign. Not the first name to be so used:

[John Quincy Adams's] printed assault upon Jonathan Russell—who had been so ill-advised as to cast doubts upon the patriotism of Adams's conduct at Ghent—was so deadly that for many years afterwards the vocabulary of America was increased, though not enriched, by the transitive verb "to Jonathan-Russell," meaning to pulverize an opponent. [George Dangerfield, "The Era of Good Feeling," 1953]