Democrat In Name Only


Democrat In Name Only is a pejorative term for any member of the United States Democratic Party elected as a Democrat but who governs and legislates like a Republican would.
The term was created as an analogous opposite to the acronym RINO.
Terms including Blue Dog Democrats and Yellow Dog Democrats have been more popular than DINO for describing heterodox Democrats. Notable examples of politicians that have been accused of being a DINO include West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, and 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

History

The phrase was used by Alven B. Goodbar, a Democrat and president of the Goodbar Shoe Manufacturing Company of St. Louis, who replied to a request from the Democratic National Committee to make a donation to the Democratic Party candidate, William Jennings Bryan, by saying "I do not recognize Mr Bryan as a democrat or as a true expounder of democratic doctrines and principles. He is a democrat in name only, while in fact he was originally a populist and by process of evolution has become a socialist."
In his 1920 run for one of Georgia's seats in the United States Senate, Thomas E. Watson was denounced by the Valdosta Times newspaper as a "Democrat in name only.". When William DeWitt Mitchell was appointed United States Attorney General in 1928 by President Herbert Hoover, the Chicago Tribune described Mitchell as a "Democrat in name only," arguing that "his record of the last few years has been Republican." In 1936 United States Senator Edward R. Burke of Nebraska resigned his position as a member of the Democratic National Committee stating that he could not support "any candidate masquerading as a Democrat but who was a Democrat in name only," referring to Terry Carpenter, a Representative from Nebraska then running for the Senate.