Ezra Klein: "It's Time to Start Feeding More Blue Dogs and Starving the Yellow Dogs"

from Texas Politics:

The term "yellow dog" derives from the saying, "I'd vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket." In the 1928 presidential election campaign, yellow dog Democrats were Alabamans who remained loyal to the party even though they did not like the Democratic candidate, Al Smith. Because the expression came generally to be used to describe loyal Southern Democrats, it also frequently had a somewhat moderate to conservative connotation, as if referring to "old school" Democrats.

Even as yellow dogs were becoming a rare breed, the "dog" moniker got refurbished, though on a smaller scale. After the Republican Party won the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, a group of thirty-three conservative Democrats formed the Blue Dog Coalition. The Blue Dogs represent a stronger break from the national (more liberal) Democratic Party, and could be traced back to Democrats who crossed party lines to support some of Ronald Reagan's policies in the 1980s.

In the 108th Congress (2002-2004), there were thirty-six Blue Dog Democrats, twelve from former Confederate states, counting three from Texas. Another six Blue Dogs represented Virginia, Missouri, Florida, and Kentucky. Befitting a more modern group, they even have a website. Yet old yellow dogs can learn new tricks, too--the official weblog of the Democratic Party is called the Yellow Dog Blog.

 

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