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Sarasota News Leader January 11, 2013 OPINION Page 64 OBSERVATIONS OFFERED ON THE MUGWUMPS' TEA PARTY By David Staats Columnist COMMENTARY On Dec. 28, Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza wrote that the overall dismal performance of Tea Party-backed candidates in the 2012 elections "epitomized the tea party's deep decline." Other columnists writing in other newspapers made the same observation. They were right, of course. Today they might be called "country club Republicans." In the pages of his paper, Dana castigated the Mugwumps as hypocritical moralizers, wholly unfit for government service. Still, the party schism helped the Republicans lose the vote in New York State, which, in turn, cost Blaine the White House. Blaine's Mugwump electoral troubles were exGrassroots political movements are typically acerbated by the remarks of an impassioned short-lived. They burn hot, and then they burn amateur. Days before the election, the Rev. out. Like Shelley's Ozymandias, they survive Samuel D. Burchard, a Presbyterian minister, as historical footnotes, if at all. delivered a speech to a Republican rally in New York City. Blaine was in the audience. Consider the Mugwumps. During the presidential election of 1884, a stampede of Re- "We are Republicans," Burchard said, "and publicans deserted GOP candidate James G. don't propose to leave our party and identify Blaine and threw their support to Democrat ourselves with the party whose antecedents Grover Cleveland. They did so in the belief have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion. We that Cleveland was a committed supporter are loyal to our flag." of good government (a "goo goo" or "goody For several days thereafter, Blaine did nothgoody" in the parlance of the time), especially ing to disassociate himself from Burchard's with respect to reform of the "spoils system" speech, a point upon which the Democrats that allowed the incumbent party to repay its immediately seized. loyalists with government jobs whether or not the party loyalists were qualified to hold them. Burchard's denigrating reference to "Romanism" was highly offensive to many Catholics, The editor of the New York Sun, Charles A. especially the recently enfranchised Irish and Dana, called the GOP deserters "Mugwumps," Italian immigrants. Some Irish voters also oba distortion of an Algonquin title that might jected to the word "rum" as a possible slur: today be colloquially translated as "big shots." the stereotypical drunken Irishman. They