From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpolitical machinepoˌlitical maˈchine noun [singular] American EnglishPP the system used by people with the same political interests to make sure that political decisions give advantages to themselves or to their group the Chicago mayor’s political machine
Examples from the Corpus
political machine• This is deadly for a political machine that lives through patronage.• But there are also those who suggest that the mayor has created his own, discreet, Chicago political machine.• By creating the ethnically balanced ticket, something new, he put together the most powerful political machine in Chicago history.• But as long as we bear these limitations in mind we can, to some extent, assess the muscle of the political machine.• Some writers have suggested that they solve the problem of the powerlessness of the individual in relation to the political machine. 