The Answer

A question that has always bugged me: why do so many conservative activists, especially on talk radio, refer to the opposition party as the "Democrat" Party, rather than the "Democratic" Party? It's obviously done to needle the Dems, but it's never been clear to me why this would be annoying. I have vague memories of Bush referring to the Democrat Party a few times without generating too much outrage (always a growth industry on the Left), which made me think maybe there's nothing to it, and was just an example of obscure inside humor among conservatives.

Legal Insurrection, however inadvertently, has provided me with the knowledge I seek: it is an insult; it does have a specific meaning, and Dems don't like it. Me? I am so out of it: "Democrat" Party Hyper-Sensitivity Syndrome

One paragraph seemed a little out of place in the context of this highbrow analysis (emphasis mine):

John Boehner, meanwhile, held a press conference in which he discussed the President's bipartisan outreach. And at one point Boehner used the epithet "Democrat majority." Out loud and on television, Boehner used a pejorative term for the Democratic Party designed to emphasize the "rat" syllable. I'm actually shocked he didn't accidentally refer to the president as "Osama."

A little sensitive, are we? Democrat Party is a no-no?

I understand the source of the sensitivity. The most frequent current user of the term "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" as an adjective is Rush Limbaugh.

But there actually is a long history to the term, along with the deep hyper-sensitivity to its use.

Very mature. Clicking through the links, you will find that conservative activists settled on the Democrat = Rat formulation, and then managed to get some in the media to adopt it - wittingly and unwittingly. There's also an amusingly tedious "Jocks vs Nerds" explication from Hendrick Hertzberg explaining why "Democrat" Party isn't grammatically correct, as if that would take the sting out of the insult. But, it's not much of an insult, as even sympathetic partisans can be clueless as to its meaning. It's a subtle dig, and certainly not as explicit as the "Nazi" "teabagger" "racist" "bitter clinger" insults we hear from the other side.