Limousine liberal is a pejorative American political term for a wealthy liberal person who expresses a deep concern for the poor, but is not actually directly engaged with them on a day to day basis. The term can also carry the connotation of expressing concern for the poor but not spending any considerable portion of one's wealth to help them.
The term was coined by 1969 Democratic New York City mayoral hopeful Mario Procaccino to describe Mayor John Lindsay and his wealthy Manhattan backers. It carried an implicit accusation that they were insulated from all negative consequences of their programs intended to benefit the poor, and that ill consequences would be borne in the main by those in the lower class who were not so poor as to be beneficiaries. In particular, Procaccino criticized Lindsay for favoring unemployed blacks over working-class whites.
In the 1970s, the term was applied to wealthy liberal supporters of open-housing and school busing. In Boston, Massachusetts, supporters of busing, such as Senator Edward Kennedy and Judge Arthur Garrity, both sent their children to private schools or lived in affluent suburbs. To some South Boston residents, Garrity's support of a plan that "integrated" their children with blacks and his apparent unwillingness to do the same with his own children, seemed like hypocrisy.
