MUGWUMP

in U.S. politics, member of a reform-oriented faction of the Republican Party that refused to support the candidacy of James G. Blaine for the presidency in 1884. Instead, the Mugwumps supported the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland. Their leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, George Curtis, and Henry Cabot Lodge; all returned to Republican ranks after the defeat of Blaine. The term, first used by Charles A. Dana in the New York Sun, was derived from the Algonkian Indian word mogkiomp (great man, or big chief). In U.S. political slang mugwump came to mean any independent voter, and later the term was adopted in England.