And so was all the commentary you based on it, then.
I read Sam’s cite, and although one could quibble with the analysis part (that’s always the case with polls), I don’t think the numbers are off-- they look like what I’ve seen in other polls.
Actually, I saw that poll in an article in The Hill, which as far as I know is not partisan. The Winston group is described as “a Washington-based polling firm”. I had absolutely no idea about their political leanings. Even if they are right-leaning, so what? There are right-leaning polling firms, and left-leaning polling firms. So long as their methodology is correct, does it matter? I’ve seen people post results from the Daily Kos poll on here. Should we dismiss those from now on?
Well, you’ve come to the right place to find out. Just ask the other participants in this thread. Some of them have been angry for the entire decade I’ve been on this board. And the anger and hatred is flowing pretty freely in this thread.
What “leaders” would those be? Obama pretty much ignores them. They marginalize themselves. They’re the ones with the racist signs, and the moronic complaints about birth certificates, “czars,” “freedoms” (what freedoms have these clowns had taken away from them?), “take our country back” (take it back from who?) screaming “nigger” and “faggot,” berating disabled people, etc. No Democratic leaders (and the adjective is “Democratic,” not “Democrat”) are making that stuff up. The baggers don’t need any help in marginalizing themselves.
Maybe it would be different if they actually any kind of articulate, coherent, unified ideology or philosophy, but they don’t. It’s just a mish mash of generalized (mostly uninformed) anti-government hostility, belligerant, arm band religionism, social issue cranks (like gun nuts and pro-lifers), xenophobes, Islamophobes, homophobes, morons who think they’re being taxed more when they’re being taxed less, and yes, racists.
Take all that suff away, and what’s really left? What are the core ideological principles of the teabagger movement? Opposition to the stim package? give me a break. I guarantee not one in 500 of these idiots has any idea what was in it (especially since polls show that support everything in it when its provisions are presented individually to them…same with HCR. They think they’re supposed to be against “Obamacare,” but when you ask them about each individual element they support every bit of it). They’re not FOR anything, and they’re not even really AGAINST anything that makes any sense.
Teabaggers are primarily uneducated, rural, white Christian males (aka rednecks), whipped up into a hysterical, racist frenzy by the massive, right wing media complex in the US, perhaps to the unintentional detriment of the Republican Party. They have no more legitimacy, or even an honest beef, than WTO anarchists or drunk Spring Breakers.
Yes, that’s exactly what the tea partiers are - in your fevered imagination. According to every poll of them I’ve seen (and according to the evidence I’ve gathered reading a LOT about the movement), reality doesn’t match your fantasy.
The tea partiers are only slightly more white than average, and that’s probably just due to the geographic center of the movement between slightly west and north of the U.S. population geographic center. They’re only slightly more religious, and there’s a healthy percentage of secular members as well. One poll (The CNN poll, I think) showed them to be more educated than average. All the polls show them to be slightly wealthier than average, probably because it’s a middle-class movement without any urban poor in it.
About the only group that’s heavily under-represented is urban Americans. It’s primarily a suburban/rural movement.
You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, dude. There’s a recent Quinnipiac poll showing that they are overwhemingly white, rural, Christian males, who are LESS educated than the average. You’ve got your information wrong.
I’ve also seen a teabag rally close up. I’m guessing you haven’t. The one I saw in Minneapolis (which I went to see just for the gawk factor) was exactly like the stereotypes – all white, lots of semi-literate signs, nonsensical slogans, overtly racist signs (and as much as you might want to kid yourself that the overt racism isn’t normative, none of the other teabaggers seemed to have any problem with them.
What was most striking to me was the complete lack of any coherent message. Some had signs about taxes or spending, but more had inane signs about birth certificates and “czars” and the like.
If you think you can detect a coherent message from the teabaggers, please tell us what it is (and just FYI, it isn’t "fiscal responsibility, so don’t even try that. That sounds nice and safe, but if it was what was really driving them, then when were they during the Bush years? Their issue is “fiscal responsibility” like Vito Corleone was an “olive oil importer.”
Even if that WERE their main issue, they would still be morons because Obama hasn’t been anything BUT responsible, unlike his predecessor.
Took me about five seconds to find out. You were too busy?
Well, that’s very different! You checked their methodology, and found it kosher? Pity you didn’t mention it, or offer the basis for your conclusions on their methodology. Unless, of course, you didn’t inquire as to their methodology at all, and are only offering a smokescreen to beat a hasty retreat. One would be hard pressed to imagine how you could have examined their methodology and yet never found out about their political biases.
Yes. Pretty sure you already did. Two bits says that if anyone has offered you a Kos poll as proof, you were on it like a starving dog on a pork chop. Or a Canadian on a weak, watery, tasteless beer. Coors North.
IOW the recent GOP base.
As for “the Democrat Party” needing to worry about them, oh, what the hell, here’s Newsmax:
He also said he was “joking”. Believe whatever you think his history leads you to believe.
Let’s get some baggers on every ballot. I’ll sign the petitions.
…(gasps, clutches pearls)…
May the Obama forgive you!
I was going to write my own response from scratch, but several of the points I was planning to make are here, so…(though of course, I will still go on and on in my own words as well;))
Most of the rhetoric I have heard from this faction takes the form of refusing to accept the results of our last presidential election and any legislation that comes out of the current, duly elected and/or appointed administration.
Their approach and tactics are decidedly UNAmerican in nature, in that they seem to be advocating secession, on an individual if not mass level, from the Union because they disagree with the outcomes of our political process. That is NOT how our system works (the civil war decided that issue).
Their tact is not simply to look towards the next election and rally as many to their pov as possible and “vote the bums out”, but to encourage active resistance and obstruction in the meantime, to the point of subtle or overt threats towards government officials and supporters of their “enemies”.
As a result, they walk a very thin line between activists and terrorists.
As a registered (Liberal/Progressive) Independent, I HOPE they split the Republican party and drive more and more folks away from their brand of “conservatism”…they might turn out to be the best thing to happen to US politics in a long while. 
And yeah, I know a (Republican) wolf in (an Independent) sheep’s clothing when I see one…Independent my ASS! :rolleyes: Most of these people are Republicans by any other name (who’ve swapped labels to try and deflect association with the failed party and its policies that got us INTO the current mess)
Wow, where WERE they for 8 years of record level federal spending, unprecendented expansion of federal powers and size, and corruption in high places? Many of them were driving around with “I support our president” stickers and attacking any who questioned the Bush administration as “traitors”. :dubious:
Bottom line, my perspective is that the bulk of this “movement” is composed of the same hypocrites and sore losers who whined, wrung their hands and engaged in the same sort of rhetoric throughout Clinton’s presidency…a bunch of paintywaists who just can’t STAND the fact that their “side” LOST and are determined to throw a 4 year (or longer) tantrum and break whatever they can until they get their way :mad:
More likely, you’ll see the battles in the GOP primaries, not the generals. Fox will try to get harder-right conservatives nominated by the party with an actual chance to win, but if that fails, they won’t try to sabotage a “reality-based” Republican in a close contest with a Democrat. Ailes isn’t crazy, but he knows the party base he’s trying to motivate is.
Well, to answer most of our questions, Fox News went out of their way to show us the Tea Party coalition is a mixed group of diverse activists.
Huh, turns out Republicans have a variety of different looking mugs too.
Coincidence?
On Tax Day last year, Beck went so far as to advertise "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties. Note the sponsorship.
Well, that would be a step above his usual tactic of citing a source that doesn’t say what he claims it says.
Thank you, I was looking to cite the article, and I couldn’t find it again. Basically, it says that there are at least two tea parties. One of them is full of people who want change in government. People who want the government to cut spending, lower taxes, and a bunch of other relatively sane things.
And the other half are, relatively, fucking nutbars.
The problem is that the two groups don’t intersect except at major conventions, so you wind up with the sane tea partiers going ‘The press is lying about us!’ and being right… from their perspective, and the nutbars going ‘We’re everywhere’ and being right… from their perspective. It’s only when you bring the two together that they realize they have nothing in common.
Glad to. Mr Raban is an excellent writer and a wry observer and, bless his heart, he does his damn homework. I also heartily recommend his book Badlands, a truly eye-opening story on an almost unknown episode of Americana.
Knock it off.
[ /Modding ]