RIP George Rodrige (Blue Dog artist)

[Tanuki]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/12/15/blue-dog-cajun-artist-george-rodrigue-dies-at-69/4032269/

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[Tanuki]

1. Btw, if that sounds ambiguous, he wasn't a "blue dog democrat!"

He just painted a dog that was blue.
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[KamaAina]

2. The Blue Dog name is in part a reference to Rodrigue's paintings

Founding Blue Dogs Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes both had his paintings in their ofices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition#History

The term is also a reference to the "Blue Dog" paintings of Cajun artist George Rodrigue of Lafayette, Louisiana, as the original members of the coalition would regularly meet in the offices of Louisiana representatives Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes, both of whom later joined the Republican Party; both had Rodrigue's paintings on their walls.

Postscript: Both Tauzin and Hayes are now repukes.

[Tanuki]

3. This is what Rodrique's wife has said about it:

http://www.wendyrodrigue.com/2010/02/clinton-bush-and-obama-portraits-or-not.html
..."The Democratic National Party asked George to provide prints appropriate as official state gifts from the Clinton White House. He created a special lithograph of his Washington Blue Dog for this purpose, and he carried these prints to the President on this trip.
However, at the last minute Clinton stopped the presentation. He thought George Rodrigue was connected, if not the instigator, to the Blue Dog Democrats, the conservative side of the Democratic Party, and apparently a thorn in the side of any sitting Democratic President.

The truth is that the term is derived from the old “Yellow Dog Democrats” in Louisiana’s political history. Although a number of the Louisiana legislators collect George’s work and hang it in their offices, he is unaffiliated in anyway whatsoever with the Blue Dog Democrats or any other political group (keep in mind his long history of Republican Presidential portraits). In fact, when the Blue Dog Democrats tried using his artwork for buttons and other paraphernalia, he was quick to stop them. We do our best to discourage the connection in the press, however it’s tough, because they made the association years ago and still assume that George’s paintings provide a mascot of sorts for the group."...

[Tx4obama]

4. RIP