[Mr Rogers]

“RINO
Republican in name only; typically means a member of the GOP who’s more liberal than a Republican should be”

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=RINO

“In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt, then-President William Howard Taft, and Senator Robert LaFollette fought for ideological control of the Republican Party and each denounced the other two as “not really Republican”.[citation needed] The phrase Republican in name only emerged as a popular political pejorative in the 1920s, 1950s and 1980s.[1]

The earliest known print appearance of the term RINO was in the Manchester, New Hampshire newspaper then called The Union Leader.[2]

“Bill Clinton would have been proud of what was happening on the third-floor Senate corner at the State House this week.... The Republicans were moving out and the Democrats and “RINOs” (Republicans In Name Only) were moving in.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_In_Name_Only

[muawiyah]

The Urban Dictionary isn't exactly correct ~ in the 1920s the term began for the younger up and coming Democrats who were attracted to the Republican party to run against Democrats in the South.

After about 40 years of doing this the Republicans finally broke the Democrat lock on "the Solid South".

No discussion of RINO means spit unless you know how the Republicans moved the Democrats aside in the states of the former Confederacy.

BTW, Roosevelt and Taft weren't particularly different in terms of modern ideology. Neither was Wilson. These guys were all budding Nazis.