On 11/08/2003 09:12 PM, "Atrikerider@aol.com" <Atrikerider@aol.com> wrote:
> Well, I suppose that I could look it up but what is a yellow dog Democrat?
>
> Paul Patzkowsky
> A descendant of Prussian Mennonites who left Russia after Catherine the Great
> to become Holy Rollers and Baptists. Considered radical by my Evangelical
> friends and a red neck by my Boulderish neighbors.
Until the civil rights movement, the Democratic Party was very popular in the South, because it was NOT "the party of Lincoln" ...
The origin of the term was that a Southerner would vote for a yellow dog, if it ran on the Democratic party ticket.
William Safire's "New Political Dictionary" says that the term goes back to the 1928 Presidential election. Alabama Sen. Tom Heflin (a Democrat) bucked the party line, and backed Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, because the Democratic party nominated Al Smith, the governor of New York and a Catholic.
While Heflin supported Hoover, others from Alabama stuck with Smith and popularized the line, "I'd vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket." This was during the days when voting Republican in the South was considered heresy, a view that lasted pretty much until Barry Goldwater came along in 1964, during the height of the civil rights movement.
SLS SLC UT
--
Steven L. Sheffield
stevens at veloworks dot com
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