Talk:Democrat in Name Only

Fox News Liberal?
Should this section even be in this article? First of all, a Democrat in Name Only or a Republican in Name Only often refers to politicians for their divergent political views for the respective parties, not to commentators. Second, is this term that widely used? I googled it and the main references I found were urban dictionary and other online wiki type cites. Third, there are virtually no citations in this section. Nothing is this section is verifiable. It appears to be mostly the point of view of the user who added this section. In addition it's very awkwardly worded and poorly written. I don't see why this section should be here. It doesn't seem like the right place for it. It would probably be more appropriate for it to have it's own article, but so far it doesn't even appear to be a verifiable term. In addition, I can't even find evidence that Ed Koch even worked for Fox News. Hosedeck (talk) 09:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

"Accursed Dinos"
This section has nothing to do with the article. The list of purported dinos has no citation to a source that shows them to be so and the rest of the section seems to retell Liebermann's life story and really has no place here and instead should be in his article. This is an article on Democrats in Name Only, not on Lieberman's entire political career, which I might add, also had virtually no sources. On top of that, the user who added this section has acted in a way that verges on vandalism, because the title of this section was "Accursed Dinos." At best this is a clear violation of the Neutral Point of View policy and at worst is vandalism. Wikipedia is not a joke. I removed this section. Hosedeck (talk) 10:01, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If I did put accursed dinos, I don’t know if that’s true I'll go back and check, it was a mistake. By no way was I taking any side Republican or Democrat. I saw a noticeable difference between this article and Republican In Name Only. I was adding Democrats who have been criticized for siding with Republicans. I don't believe I did anything wrong. You are probably right that there was too much info on Lieberman, but I think he and anyone else accused of being a DINO deserves mention. Maybe we can get some info from Conservative Democrat and maybe even Blue Dog Democrats. - Rockyobody (talk) 21:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Andrews Sullivan is a Conservative?
This is ridiculous. We should make the case that he is a Conservative before we allow the assertion that he is a Conservative endorsing a Democrat. --Blue Spider (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Assuming you mean Andrew Sullivan, FWIW his famous self-description was "Gay Tory Catholic" (although I think he wrote it as one word, "gaytorycatholic"). Obvious ironic intent aside, "Tory" there is presumably no accident.
 * That said though: it seems to me to be time to adjust this article to reflect that this term and RINO were heavily used in a brief period that has now passed. They are no longer particularly current terms, as far as I can tell. - Jmabel | Talk 22:21, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Go to his page and look at his economics. He supports flat taxes, privatization of social security ect. He even self identifies as one.
 * That means nothing. Especially not self-identification, I could say I was the King of Mars, that doesn't make it true. If he can be considered a "conservative supporter of Kerry and Obama", then Zell Miller must be called a "liberal who endorsed Bush". J390 (talk) 07:54, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Conservative Democrats today
This section doesn't appear to be about the term "Democrat In Name Only". Conservative Democrats are no necessarily "Democrat In Name Only". Can anyone suggest a better article to move this material to?  Will Beback   talk    19:13, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I see the material is duplicated at Conservative Democrat. I'll just delete it from this article.   Will Beback    talk    19:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Accused DINOs
I removed the material on individual people because none of the sources accused them of being DINOs.  Will Beback   talk    19:49, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Somewhere along the line this section got restored. I removed it again, as a clear violation of WP:BLP, and will revert anyone who tries to restore it without reliable sources describing each specific individual as a DINO. Robofish (talk) 16:23, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

This article cites a Blog as a reference
According to Wikipedia, the Daily Kos is a blog."Daily Kos is an American political blog that publishes news and opinions from a progressive point of view. It functions as a discussion forum and group blog for a variety of netroots activists, whose efforts are primarily directed toward influencing and strengthening the Democratic Party."

I thought opinions were not acceptable Wikipedia content.Robert Smith 1956 (talk) 03:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The "many Dixiecrats" assertion uses a weasel word
"words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated"Robert Smith 1956 (talk) 03:35, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Coatracked, with no sources for term DINO
This article is currently duplicative (and perhaps a WP:POVFORK) of Conservative Democrat, and has no sources for the term DINO (and hardly any sources for the lengthy, off-topic historical essays). It has been tagged as insufficiently sourced for eight (8) years. It could be redirected to Conservative Democrat; however, that leads to a bigger problem. Redirection is effectively a WP:POVPUSH because it implies that "conservative" positions are fundamentally incompatible (in some unidentified people's opinion) with the US Democratic Party. To the best of my knowledge, neither historical southern Democrats (who sustained racial segregation and Jim Crow), nor the modern day Democratic Leadership Council (accommodating banks and large business interests) were considered outside the Party mainstream in their time. The assumption that conservative Democrats are not true Democrats, while probably held by some, is given undue weight when presumed for the purposes of a redirect.

I imagine this article structure is copied from the Republican In Name Only article; however, that article explains a recurring theme of political figured being considered not authentically Republican by not supporting its more conservative positions. This article never states exactly who claims this opinion (that conservatives are not true Democrats), or what the significance of this political epithet might be, or makes a case for it being common. I suspect that DINO is a term coined by various writers imitative of RINO, but not widely used among Democrats at large; however, I am not adding this to this article unsourced.

Google hits for this term tend to be primary sources where the writer uses the term describing a political figure:


 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune
 * 1998 Chicago Tribune

Only three of these sources (Peterson, Peter G. (2004) where Joe Leiberman is labelled a "DINO" by "party activists", Herzig, Winnie Frolik & Billy (2009) where unnamed "others" use this label on specific Democrats, and Conlan, Timothy J (undated), super-obscure) show this term in use in other, possibly politically significant context.

Since the Conservative Democrat content is duplicative and unsourced, I am partially reverting this article to an earlier, less WP:Coatracked state. However, every paragraph of this article still needs a source for its primary assertion. / edg ☺ ☭ 19:25, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

no sources
I just deleted the one source that was left in the article, because it was on an old and silly version of the article (claiming that the term DINO had something to do with the 2016 platform, when of course the term well predates it) and did not contain any discussion of the DINO term. Yes, that left the article with no sources, but that was better than the illusion that it had a source. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:34, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Definition
There have been repeated attempts by an editor to use a definition of DINO that relies specifically on the 2016 Democratic platform. This was both unsourced and ridiculous, as this article well predates the existence of that platform.

I'm not thrilled with the definition grounded in "liberal" that I restored; it seems to me that the usage is much more along the lines with "a member of the Democratic Party whose public positions seem more in line with those common in the Republican Party". Of course, "seems to me" is a poor basis for content inclusion... but we're not actually using anything with a stronger basis in this lousy article. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:00, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Since that post, user has tried to replace the definition currently in the article, apparently to make it echo the definition of RINO currently used at Republican In Name Only. The problem with doing that is that not only is that definition not sourced, it is in conflict with the sourced definition currently in use. When we have a sourced definition to used, we can consider switching to a different sourced one, but should not switch to an unsourced one.... and certainly not do so while leaving the source in place, as the source no longer verifies the statement. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:24, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Supposed origin
Currently, under "Origin", we have its usage in a 1908 newspaper article, with no source claiming that's it's origin.... which is unsurprising, as I can find it used 8 years earlier in a Galveston paper. I am retired from article editing, but suggest that the "Origin" subsection be removed. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:35, 20 September 2022 (UTC)