Where did the term "Grand Old Party" come from

[Lenape85]

I'm kinda wondering, since the Old part doesn't make sense (the Dems have been around longer)

[eleonora]

1. from the Grand Ole Opry? haha...freeper central n/t

[villagechild]

2. Gang of Plunderers

"The Party of Plunder"

must read

The Origins of the GOP
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo84.html

[coloradodem2005]

3. The "Grand" part doesn't make any sense either.

Since there is nothing "Grand" about the party.

[bvar22]

4. I thought it was for

Greedy Old (white men) Party

[myomy]

5. How about ÒGreedy Old PartyÓ.

.

[Warpy]

6. Grand old Party of the Army of the Republic

something they fail to mention on all their websites, preferring the fiction that it was an imitation of Gladstone of Britain being called the Grand Old Man, or GOM, in newspaper headlines there. In any case, the first use dates from the late 1860s (the party being formed in the 1830s as an abolition party) and less palatable to southerners than the fiction of the 1870s, when the abbreviation was in common usage in newspapers.

[mcscajun]

7. More info here...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/03/politics/main531460.shtml