You hear about RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) alot, but never the Democratic equivalent. Why is that?
Blue Dogs, anyone? Ben Nelson?
Funny, I would have thought it was the other way around, judging by my experience.
Joe Lieberman was given the DINO label. He lost the party primary and had to win as an independent, so he isn’t a Democrat anymore, although he still caucuses with them.
Does Zell Miller count?
Also Zell Miller. I think people tend to hear about [R/D]INOs in reference to their chosen political leaning, just because it’s more common to talk about ideological purity among like-minded individuals than it is to discuss it with “the opposition”.
Most of them got beat by real Republicans in 2010.
They all perished during the great egalitarian die-off,* thought to have occurred about 1980 C.E.
*Otherwise known as the Reaganozoic era.
Because most of the really conservative Dems – voters as well as pols – migrated over to the Pubs in the 1970s. (Many of them, by way of George Wallace’s American Independence Party.) Nixon’s Southern Strategy worked very well indeed.
The Dems have less control over their members, with more of their senators willing to break ranks. Ironically, this makes them less likely to attack said members with labels like DINO, since unlike Repubs who will go back to the line after such an attack, Blue Dog Democrats may well stray farther out of principle/spite.
Democrats also recognize the necessity of compromise, even if we don’t necessarily like it. This is as opposed to the Republicans, who view compromise as a tool of the Devil.
And Lieberman isn’t a DINO for the simple reason that he isn’t even INO any more.
They exist. It’s called Kentucky.
That was at the end of the Messyzoic, when the Age of DINOs was succeeded by the Age of Newts. 
As late as the 1980s, both parties had liberal, moderate, and conservative wings. That made them competitive in all areas of the country. It’s only since the Reagan years that the party has purged itself of liberals and has been working to drive out the moderates. Democrats simply haven’t done that; in fact, they’ve recognized that in some areas they have to nominate conservatives to win.
You can only have the concept of an INO if you start with the assumption that a party must value ideological fidelity over winning elections. Small parties have had this problem historically - after all, there’s no real point in joining a third party unless you highly rate their particular set of values. But the two major parties have existed since the Civil War (outside of the South, but that was a pathology affecting only a small minority of the country) on the basis that they were national parties that could appeal to everyone.
The attempt to make the Republican party ideologically pure is new and was bound to be unsuccessful in a presidential election. That’s why I’ve been saying for a year that Romney would be the nominee. It can be done at the state and local level but that’s not a long-term strategy either. The gains made by Republicans in 2010 were the result of strong conservatives and only strong conservatives voting in greater numbers than in a presidential year (the norm is one-half) and that’s highly unlikely to be repeated, or that the Democrats will allow themselves to be blindsided that way a second time.
INOs will be a short-lived aberration. No national party can be successful with only one of the three wings. It’s change or die.
After a series of ‘incidents’ on the carpet, Fred and Wilma made the tough decision and called the vet.
I can fucking tell you why. Sense and reason.
Take yourself back to Dec 2009. I had determined that I wished to run for County Commission. Simple enough.
Problem: I had no party affiliation. I knew people of both parties who I thought highly of and could identify with closely.
So I called the county chairs of both parties and asked to meet with them.
I met with the chair of the local Democratic party and outlined my positions. These included my pro-business stances and such. Free marketeer, minimal regulation, open opportunities and such. She told me there was room for that in her party and that she’d be glad to have me and the party would support me if I could to be a democrat.
I met with the chair of the local Republican party. He told me that his committee had discussed my potential candidacy and that if I would agree to sign a pledge supporting these 20-odd items they would consider me. He even said I didn’t have to actually support them but I would have to SAY that I did and act as if I did to gain their support.
That, my friends, is why you have a lot of talk of RINOS and little of DINOS.
I have a lot of respect for Mapcase, but I think the country will continue to move more toward ideological parties for a while. The Conservative Movement isn’t a ball team and does not want to be. It’s a religion, and one with a hierarchy of “experts” who must be believed and obeyed. Their objective is to utterly take over the districts they occupy now, take over the media, and purge enough politically incorrect thinking from their constituents to remake the country in their image. That’s quite a different thing from the old party-as-ballteam. Decisions are being made for the sake of the movement not just the party.
- Or perhaps a coalition of several religions which treat loyalty to the movement as loyalty to themselves.
They used to be called Blue Dogs and they’re dying out. They were significant enough to mention when I was doing politics three years ago.
We’re probably using different definitions of “short-term” and “for a while”. Historically short-term can feel like a long time to live through. The situation you describe is unstable for a national party. Can the Republican party survive if it’s still on this path in the 2020 election? Doubtful.