A stalking horse is a figure that tests a concept with someone or mounts a challenge against someone on behalf of an anonymous third party. If the idea proves viable or popular, the anonymous figure can then declare its interest and advance the concept with little risk of failure. If the concept fails, the anonymous party will not be tainted by association with the failed concept and can either drop the idea completely or bide its time and wait until a better moment for launching an attack.
Read more about Stalking Horse: Origin, Usage, Related Concepts
Famous quotes containing the words stalking and/or horse:
“We talk about a representative government; but what a monster of a government is that where the noblest faculties of the mind, and the whole heart, are not represented! A semihuman tiger or ox, stalking over the earth, with its heart taken out and the top of its brain shot away. Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were shot off, but I never heard of any good done by such a government as that.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water”
—N. Scott Momaday (b. 1934)