Being “regular” meant dependable, unquestioning party loyalty in Tammany parlance

Evidence

But in the evenings, after supper, Al Smith left his family and went down to the clubs and saloons. And now another man was watching the youth whom everybody liked—Tom Foley. Signing him up as a campaign speaker, Foley soon saw that even in this heartland of Irish platform eloquence, Smith was something special. And, more important, he saw that Smith could be counted on; his praise of a Democratic candidate’s personal qualifications was just as fervent whether he knew the candidate or not. To the other adjectives with which men described Smith, Foley added one that, in the lexicon of the Democracy of New York City, had a special significance—Smith was, he said, “regular.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 511

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Tammany-specific meaning of “regular” as unconditional party loyalty regardless of personal feeling.
• XREF: connects to: Loyal party discipline must flow from conviction, not mechanical coercion — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 219; Tammany valued an uneducated ally’s authenticity over credentialed polish — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 533

Broader Connections

• Loyal party discipline must flow from conviction, not mechanical coercion #qualifies (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 219