Yellow dog Democrat

From dKosopedia

Category: Democrats

A Yellow Dog Democrat is a staunch Democratic Party loyalist, usually white and Southern. Basically, a self-professed Yellow Dog Democrat would prefer to vote for a yellow dog than vote for a Republican candidate.

William Safire explains the origin of the term in his "New Political Dictionary" by recounting the tale of Alabama Senator Tom Heflin, who in 1928 decided to endorse Herbert Hoover over Alfred E. Smith for the Presidency. In defiance, Smith's Alabaman supporters declared that they'd vote for a yellow dog as long as it ran on the Democratic ticket. Southern Democrat loyalists soon began calling themselves Yellow Dog Democrats, and while the term has been in decline, a number of Democrats still call themselves Yellow Dogs.

While most self-professed Yellow Dog Democrats are liberal and/or progressive, a significant number of them are more moderate or conservative. In 1995, a group of Democrats in the House of Representatives began calling themselves Blue Dog Democrats to indicate that they had been choked blue by the dominance of liberals in the Democratic Party.