Am I Making to Much of This?

M-W.com ^ | 16 October 2004 | R. DeWynne Brown, III

[rdb3]

I'm working on a presentation for Monday morning, and I needed a thesarus. I can't find mine, so, I go to my favorite dictionary site which is Merriam-Webster Online.

I notice the word "mugwump" as their "Word of the Day." Always adding to my vocabulary, I read to see its definition which is right there on the opening page. The definition of mugwump is:

"\MUG-wump\ noun
1 : a bolter from the Republican party in 1884

One who is a "bolter of the Republican party." Hmm...

In this highly chared political season, am I making to much of this to think that this word is there on purpose and was not there randomly?

BTW, I first pulled up the site in Mozilla. I cleared the cache and refreshed. Still there. I switch to the Konqueror browser and try again. It's still there.

If the word switches when you go there, I guess I was seeing black helicopters or something. Give it a try. See what you come with.

$710.96... The price of freedom
VII-XXIII-MMIV

[rdb3]

Please have a look.

$710.96... The price of freedom
VII-XXIII-MMIV

[Freepdonia]

I know I called "Jumpin'" Jim Jeffords other words than a mugwump a few years back.

[COUNTrecount]

[txrangerette]

If it is there on purpose, I would nevertheless doubt it influences anyone to turn away from the GOP.

Unless they're crazy, as would be whoever put it there on purpose.

JMO...

[cricket]

Interesting. . .these Dems are leaving no stone unturned. Hardly a random event - no matter the circumstances of your finding it.

[mhking]

They'll try anything, man....

---

Just damn.

If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[K1avg]

It's still there, although it makes no sense for it to not be random.

Then again, Dems have tried some stupid and nonsensical tactics before. Perhaps they are trying to convince "moderate" Republicans (read RINOs) that it's OK to "bolt" the party, and it in fact has historical precedent.

How many people in this demographic do you expect to visit this site today? Further, how many of them do you reckon will change their votes solely because of this?

Very likely few, if any. We've both overanalyzed this. On to more pertinent business...

[King Prout]

if it is deliberate, it is doomed to inefficacy: few Dims can read

[Slings and Arrows]

Sometimes a mugwump is just a mugwump.

[xJones]

If they have any intention of being fair, they should feature copperheads tomorrow.

Copperheads in the American Civil War, a reproachful term for those Northerners sympathetic to the South, mostly Democrats outspoken in their opposition to the Lincoln administration. They were especially strong in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, where Clement L. Vallandigham was their leader. The Knights of the Golden Circle was a Copperhead secret society. The term was often applied indiscriminately to all Democrats who opposed the administration. It afforded an opportunity for impugning the loyalty of those who opposed Lincoln’s policies, either military or civil (e.g., the suspension of habeas corpus), and it was not until years after the Civil War that the Democratic party succeeded in living down the association.

[xJones]

Re #13, "copperheads" gets even more intersting.

One of their major Democratic leaders was the Dem Mayor of New York City and another was Clement L.Vallandigham.

Vallandigham joined with Fernando Wood, mayor of New York City, and other like-minded individuals to establish the Peace Democrats, a faction that espoused a negotiated end to the fighting and recognition of an independent Confederacy if necessary.

It seems the former Rep. Vallandigham-D was eventually banished to the Confederacy in 1863!

[xJones]

Correction to #12: I was referring to my first post #11. Sorry.

[steveegg]

They'll try anything, man....

Actually, it's "everything"; "anything" was Sore Loserman's shenanigans in 2000.

[sweetliberty]

ROTFL!

[Freedom2specul8]

That's pretty interesting..thanks!

[gortklattu]

I get their word of the day and have realized that they will often follow some current event or another.

You gave me an idea because of this..... I'll bookmark it and get back to it.

Gort

[rdb3]

You gave me an idea because of this..... I'll bookmark it and get back to it.

Good deal. Just do me a favor and please ping me to it, that is, if it is something that you will end up posting. Deal?

$710.96... The price of freedom
VII-XXIII-MMIV

[albertp]

MUGWUMP - all excerpts are quoted from William Safire's "Political Dictionary," 3rd edition 1978.

MUGWUMP bolter; MAVERICK

Anyone who bolted his political party was a mugwump, especially those Republicans who refused to support the presidential candidacy of James Blain in 1884. The true mugwump went a step further and gave his support to the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland of New York.

The first known use of the word was by John Eliot in his Indian Bible, published in 1663, from the Algonquin language, in which the word mugquomp is used to define a chief or another individual of high rank. (SACHEM)

In June 1884 it was popularized politically by the New York Sun and quickly became common parlance. The Republicans had met in convention and picked Blaine as their candidate. Many figures of stature (though not much influence) in the party decided they could not accept a man they felt was so corrupt. They met June 7, 1884, in Boston and decided to support Grover Cleveland. The Sun jeeringly referred to them as "Little Mugwumps," meaning little men attempting to be big chiefs. Little they were not: their ranks sparkled with such names as President Eliot of Harvard, Carl Schurz, Charles Francis Adams, and George William Curtis.

The "little," in fact, was soon dropped; the term "mugwump" persisted and, indeed, those so labeled soon accepted and even affected the description after Admiral Horace Porter defined a mugwump as "a person educated beyond his intellect."

"Mugwumpery"...the term has most usually been applied to independent Republicans....

"a sort of bird that sits on a fence with his mug on one side and his wump on the other."

Theodore Roosevelt, who was persuaded to party orthodoxy in 1884 by Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, called mugwumps "dudes" - they had also been called "pharisees." Roosevelt professed contempt for mugwumps...up to the time he bolted the Republican party and ran for the presidency as an independent in 1912.

[Joy Angela]

Anyone who doesn't have an opinion
or is undecided or leaves the Republican
party is a MUGWUMP.

That sounds about right!