the big enchilada
the top enchilada

The big enchilada is not a situation but a person.

In either case, we should go for the big enchilada."

But the big enchilada slipped off the platter when she disappeared."

But China, he acknowledges, is "the big enchilada, the big test."

Listen, enough about me; let's talk about the big enchilada: the three guys who got capped.

The governor is wandering in a no man's land between a whole enchilada and the big enchilada.

Surely, the big enchilada can be blamed.

His book The Big Enchilada is a chronicle of Bush's 2000 campaign.

Take the big enchilada of environmental challenges, the limitation of carbon emissions to slow or stop global warming.

"This is the big enchilada - not much doubt about that," said Bob Dole, the former Senate majority leader who ran for president in 1996.

We are no longer the undisputed top dog, numero uno, the big enchilada.

Pop-culture economics assumes that competition crushes the little guy, but in practice it's often the big enchilada that gets eaten.

"Mubarak wants to be active now on the big enchilada," an American official said, referring to the Israel-Syria talks.

In firing Gen. Douglas MacArthur, he gave the boot to the biggest enchilada of them all.

It's the big enchilada."

The biggest enchilada is Brent Scowcroft, who was President Ford's national security adviser.

So the financials of your plan can certainly be referred to as the heart, the meat, the big enchilada - insert your own mega metaphor here.

According to activist Jonathan Kozol, education is seen as one of the biggest market opportunities in America or "the big enchilada".

John Ehrlichman concurs, "He's the big enchilada."

"It's the big enchilada of environmental reform," Mr. Portney says, one giving regulators the flexibility to bend without breaking.

California Its importance invites cliches like the Big Enchilada: 47 electoral votes, whether you win by 1,000 ballots or by one million.

This is the big enchilada for most visitors and takes you to the top of El Yunque (3496ft, 1049m) in 1 hours or longer.

But wittingly or unwittingly, both of these supposedly thorough inquiries actually protected the White House by avoiding, in Watergate lingo, "the big enchilada."

It was last run by "The Big Enchilada" on April 26, 2008, with Amazon.com and Microsoft providing prizes.

Mr. Bentsen has not forgotten the importance of compromising around the edges to help win approval of the big enchiladas, like the President's economic package.