A quick question about Republican terminology

[tenshi816]

Forgive my ignorance about this please, but can someone please tell me when the Republicans began referring to the Democrats as the "Democrat" party instead of the Democratic party? Why do they do this? I find it a source of great irritation that they persist in getting in wrong (when I'm sure they know better).

Do they do it just to be childish or is there some other reasoning behind it?

[TAPat]

1. Republican strategists

found that "Democratic" polled more favorably than "Democrat".
The first: an idea
The second: an individual

[babylonsister]

2. I think they're playing mind games, trying to get your goat.

Please try to ignore it; they're the ignorant ones, not us.

[emanymton]

3. It Is Intentional! ... It Is Meant To Be Insulting.

It is childish and intended to be so. Forget never, politics is a game of childish behavior and insults for the sake of distraction.



Bush Lied. People Died. Media Cheered.

[Minnesota Libra]

4. If neocons/fundies refer to us as The Democratic Party then it............

...infers the neocons/fundies are NOT democratic in their views. I think that's it in a nut shell.

[meegbear]

5. This started from a repug political ad ...

The ad had a voiceover while words were being flashed on the screen, with the words spelt with mixed upper and lower case. One of the words shown was "democRAT". There was a complaint about that and the ad was pulled. But, they got their smear.

Now when a repug wants to be "derogatory", they say that.

[TAPat]

6. The guy who cooked this up,

back in Newtie times, was a party footsoldier. He now works in the private sector doing focus groups for product advertising - for the life of me I can't remember his name but saw a piece on him on 60 minutes, I think.
"Democrat Party" was his baby and worked so well that it became offical party lingo and advanced his standing with the Pubs.
This dude is making like $800 gazillion a minute these days and it all started with the Democrat thing.
(Sorry if this sounded like a lecture :))

[tenshi816]

7. No, not a lecture, this is great.

Thanks to all of you who replied.

God, it all sounds so Rovian to me, especially the bit from the poster who referred to the ad flashing democRAT on the screen. Very subliminal, and disgusting.

It infuriates me that the term "Democrat Party" has now permeated the entire country. Sometimes I even see it used by DUers (although they may be trolls for all I know).

I'm not surprised that it originated during Newt's heyday.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

10. That is correct - it came from Gingrich and his staff.

They compiled a list of words to always use when talking about Democrats and distributed it amongst their ilk. It was quite successful, unfortunately.

[wicket]

8. It is meant to be an insult

Any time you hear some use Democrat instead of Democratic, correct them, I do! Pisses them off too, but this is just a petty way of them trying to insult us.

[Warpy]

9. One dimwit said it out of ignorance

then a whole bunch of childish and belligerent pundits thought it sounded better than "Democratic" and was more conducive to demonizing all people within that party, so they picked it up.

After all, the adjective "democratic" is supposed to be what they're all about in Iraq, right? How can they possibly use it to identify their opposition here? It's just not seemly, you know.

However, they can get a good spit going when they hurl the world "Democrat."

Assholes.