mugwump

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The Word of the Day for October 16 is:

mugwump   \MUG-wump\   noun
     1 : a bolter from the Republican party in 1884
    *2 : a person who is independent in politics or who remains 
undecided or neutral

Example sentence: 
     Campaigning heated up in the swing states as the election 
approached, both sides making a last bid for the mugwump vote.

Did you know?
     An 18th-century Massachusett Indian might not recognize his 
people's word for "war leader" if he saw it used today. In early 
America, "mugwump," our version of the Native 
American "mugquomp," was sometimes jestingly applied to someone 
who was the "head guy." The first political mugwumps were 
Republicans in the presidential race of 1884 who chose to 
support Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland rather than their 
own party's nominee. Their independence prompted one 1930s 
humorist to define a mugwump as "a bird who sits with its mug on 
one side of the fence and its wump on the other."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.