Why the Democrat's Mascot is the Donkey

One of my Shop Stewards from the swing state of New Hampshire bought me a Democratic Donkey key chain as a gift today. In the package with this nice gift was a small card that gave the history behind the Democratic Donkey. I thought it was interesting enough to share with my DU friends.

THE DEMOCRATIC DONKEY


The now famous Democratic Donkey was first associated with Democrat Andrew Jackson's 1828 Presidential campaign. His opponents called him a donkey and Jackson decided to use the donkey image on his campaign posters.

Later, cartoonist Thomas Nast used the donkey in the 1870 Harper's Weekly cartoon to represent the "Copperhead Press" kicking a dead lion, symbolizing President Lincoln's Secretary of War Edward Stanton who had recently died. Nast intended the donkey to represent an anti-war faction with whom he disagreed, but the symbol caught on with the public and Nast continued to use it to indicate some Democratic editors and newspapers.

By 1880 the donkey was established as a mascot for the Democratic Party.

Historically the Democratic Party stands for Labor and was formed to support the working class of America. At the time the Democratic Party was formed, the Donkey was the mainstay of labor. It was used in mining, railroad, construction, and many other industries. It was the backbone of the country and did the work done today by trucks of all sizes.

The Donkey is a loyal animal, working from sunrise to sunset and for these qualities was chosen as the symbol of the Democratic Party. The Party of the working class. The Party representing families and the living wage.

eom

I won't say anything derogatory about repug's use of the elephant as a symbol, because I like that animal so much... but anyone know why it is their symbol?

It shits more than any other animal?!

Love elephants, but they clearly do produce excrement!

n/t

Whoa.

(1) it is big
(2) it tramples all the little ants - ie. the little people of the world
(3) it demands the attention of the poop-scoopper

The Republican Party started in the 1850's, formed from a split in the Democratic party, whose members, primarily abolitionists, felt the Democrats were no longer representing their interests. They decided to call themselves Republicans because they felt their ideals were very similar to Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party. After the Civil War, the upstart Republicans were perceived as the party that won the war. Now firmly entrenched in the federal government, they were ironically dubbed the "Gallant Old Party," which soon became the "Grand Old Party," which was soon shortened to the familiar acronym "GOP."

In 1874, it was rumored that U. S. Grant would run for an unprecedented third term. As the rumors were surfacing, there was also a contemporary urban legend that several animals had escaped from the New York Zoo. Thomas Nast, the most popular and influential cartoonist of the time, took the opportunity to combine the two in a cartoon for The New Yorker magazine, representing the Republicans as elephants, docile but unmoveable when calm, unstoppable and destructive when excited. The cartoon, entitled "The Third Term Panic," depicted the Republican vote as an elephant running inexorably into a tar pit of inflation and chaos. Interestingly, the elephant was running away from the already established Democratic donkey, dressed in a lion's skin. This was Nast's take on the Democrats' view of Grant as Caesar, and their feeling that they had an obligation to play Brutus before he let the power of his office corrupt him.

The donkey predated Nast by three decades, when it was used during Andrew Jackson's campaign, initially by his opponents, calling him a 'jackass' for his populist policies. Well known as stubborn, however, Jackson decided to co-opt the mascot, and used it to his own advantage. After Jackson retired, he was still looked at as a party leader, even though the party refused to be led, and the 1837 cartoon "A Modern Baalim and his Ass" showed him leading a donkey which refused to follow. However, the donkey image was not popularized until the ubiquitous Nast adopted it, first depicting the party as a kicking donkey, attacking Lincoln's secretary of war Edwin Stanton even after his death in an 1870 cartoon for Harper's Weekly.

In other words, both animals were chosen for their negative qualities, such as stubbornness and willy-nilly destruction, and then adopted by the parties for their positive attributes, and neither party has been stubborn or destructive ever since.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mgop.html

I always figured the elephant was representative of the elephant in the living room. While almost everyone can agree that yes, it is an elephant, nobody can decide what to do about it. Meanwhile, the elephant continues to break furniture and shit all over everything.

"the elephant in the living room" was the thing that everyone saw, but no one wanted to talk about (like the PNAC)

Boosh has created, in three short years, a government that is kin to an elephant in your living room.

He's there, like big brother, watching over you, and if you make a wrong move WHAM! the boosh government will crush you flat.

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Ya know, as long as the pukes do stay calm, they're not too bad to be around. But they've been going nuts far too long now, eh?

for dumbo the elephant.

and determine whether I would have liked him or not.

I'm not up on my history.

Go Donkey Go!