The Grand Old Party

I know I missed a class or two in Goverment studies. Maybe I was there but not really there, if you know what I mean.

So, now I'm asking; what does GOP mean? Feeling a little silly I finally looked it up. It's quite possible I'm the last to know... but in case I'm not, it stands for the Grand Old Party, otherwise known as the Republican Party. Wikipedia explains a bit more below.

"The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties of the United States, along with the Democratic Party. It is often referred to as the Grand Old Party or the GOP.
Founded in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, the Republican Party quickly surpassed the Whig Party as the principal opposition to the Democratic Party. In 1860, it came to power with the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. The party presided over the American Civil War and Reconstruction and was harried by internal factions and scandals toward the end of the 19th century. Today, the party supports a conservative platform (from an American political perspective), with further foundations in supply-side fiscal policies, and social conservatism."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)