Massive Tea party attendance at VA/Washington.

[Zoom-boing]

Your last sentence. Straight out of a Rovian play book.

Everyone is entitled to gripe out the budget and the deficit. It would have been more believable if they started about eight years ago.

Your patent answer...Whose playbook is THAT from, I wonder?


I don't know from any political "playbooks", I think for myself.



Teabagger haters and Obamabots can just keep on making fun of the "Tea Baggers" and dismissing the budget numbers we are up against...Nothing to see here!

Yep...again, none of this bothered them under Bush...and they don't want to cut SS, Medicare, or defense. So basically they are complaining that the Republicans are out of power.

Of course it bothered people. The Tea Partiers didn't form earlier because as bad as Bush was, he wasn't bad enough. Obama saw that void . . . . and filled it well.

 

[Zoom-boing]

As it turns out, earlier I happened to peruse a new CBS/New York Times poll detailing the attitudes of tea party activists, who, it turns out, are more educated than the average American, more reflective of mainstream anxieties than any populist movement in memory and more closely aligned philosophically with the wider electorate than any big-city newsroom in America.

What seemed to be the biggest news derived from the poll nationally? A plurality of tea party activists do not deem Sarah Palin qualified for the presidency -- proving, I suppose, that some people have the ability to be exceptionally fond of a political celebrity without elevating her to sainthood.

More significantly, the polling showed that most tea party activists believe the taxes they pay are "fair." The largest number of them want their movement to work to reduce the size of government rather than focus on cutting budget deficits or lowering taxes. Whether you concur or not with this viewpoint, it exhibits more economic sophistication than we often hear from pandering senatorial candidates.

It was news that tea party activists -- unlike our president or most senators -- send their children to public schools. (With a public monopoly in place, where else are they expected to send their children?) The majority of them also deem Social Security and Medicare worthy taxpayer burdens, putting a crimp in the left-wing mythology that the anarchist mob is about to explode.

And though tea party supporters are more conservative than the average voter on social issues, as well -- particularly abortion, according to a separate Gallup Poll -- The New York Times reports that 8 in 10 tea party activists believe the movement should focus on economic issues rather than cultural ones.

How long have we been hearing from moderate, sensible, worldly Republican types that if only -- if only -- the right found God on economic issues and lost God on the social ones, there would be an expansion of appeal and support? Apparently, they were right.

Now, I won't allege to have observed any sweeping displays of multiculturalism at the tea party shindig I attended (though without question, it featured more diversity than my own cloistered rock-ribbed lefty neighborhood). According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, tea party "supporters skew right politically; but demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large."

More specifically, the economic strata in which the tea party movement resides will bear the brunt of Washington's economic reorganization, namely the middle class. The majority of Americans are middle-class, and their concerns (the economy, job creation, etc.) more closely mirror the tea party than Washington's progressive agenda (the environment, entitlements, etc.).

RealClearPolitics - Will D.C. Listen to the Tea Parties?

 

[Ravi]

Your patent answer...Whose playbook is THAT from, I wonder?


I don't know from any political "playbooks", I think for myself.



Teabagger haters and Obamabots can just keep on making fun of the "Tea Baggers" and dismissing the budget numbers we are up against...Nothing to see here!

Yep...again, none of this bothered them under Bush...and they don't want to cut SS, Medicare, or defense. So basically they are complaining that the Republicans are out of power.

It's true there is a certain element on either end of the spectrum who will go blindly over the cliff for their political party.... (the twenty percenters ?) And then there's the rest of us who don't CARE about politics and blame games, we just want results!

Our states are going bankrupt! Doesn't MATTER how many people recognize it then or now, it is a fact...


It's a shame a few extremists have spoiled the Tea Party image and I denounce the violence and bigotry, but I do not patently denounce the Tea Party message over it.

I really wish the partisans would stop trying to blindly marginalize concerned citizens by lumping them in with extremists like some sort of hysterical partisan punch-line.

You can keep telling me that most of the tea partiers aren't full of shit but that doesn't make it so.

I don't believe we are now a communist country, or even a socialist one. I'm not afraid that health care reform, even though I don't much like what was passed, is going to destroy the economy. I don't think one president can hurt the country. I don't think militias are the answer. Most of the posters on this board that seem to support the tea partiers are nuts.

Why would I sign on to a movement that is made up of the same rightwing loons that brought us George W. Bush and admire Sarah Palin?

 

[Valerie]

Yep...again, none of this bothered them under Bush...and they don't want to cut SS, Medicare, or defense. So basically they are complaining that the Republicans are out of power.

It's true there is a certain element on either end of the spectrum who will go blindly over the cliff for their political party.... (the twenty percenters ?) And then there's the rest of us who don't CARE about politics and blame games, we just want results!

Our states are going bankrupt! Doesn't MATTER how many people recognize it then or now, it is a fact...


It's a shame a few extremists have spoiled the Tea Party image and I denounce the violence and bigotry, but I do not patently denounce the Tea Party message over it.

I really wish the partisans would stop trying to blindly marginalize concerned citizens by lumping them in with extremists like some sort of hysterical partisan punch-line.

You can keep telling me that most of the tea partiers aren't full of shit but that doesn't make it so.

I don't believe we are now a communist country, or even a socialist one. I'm not afraid that health care reform, even though I don't much like what was passed, is going to destroy the economy. I don't think one president can hurt the country. I don't think militias are the answer. Most of the posters on this board that seem to support the tea partiers are nuts.

Why would I sign on to a movement that is made up of the same rightwing loons that brought us George W. Bush and admire Sarah Palin?

The people who post here are hardly representative of the average citizen.

Some people might be full of shit, but that doesn't change the numbers!

I don't blame Obama either. I posted something this morning that said the government has been spending over budget since 1969.

Federal Budget Spending and the National Debt



Even the Democratic speaker of the house recently acknowledged that we all share some of the values of the Tea Party...We're all in this together, so you don't have to "sign on" to the Tea Party in order to not be patently dismissive and condescending.

 

[Father Time]

So insignificant, but yet you keep paying attention to them.

Well hardly 6 hours go by when there isn't another thread about them on these boards.

 

[NYcarbineer]

I'm sure liberal infiltrators are to blame for the paltry turnout,

probably by diabolically not showing up.

All your clever remarks aside, do you acknowledge that it is quite rational to be deeply concerned about our National Debt and the budget deficit???

Further, I wonder whether you think it is irrational to disregard this grave concern due to some partisan bigots or a small fragment of irrational violent revolutionaries?

Is it not irrational to judge the validity of theses concerns based on some clever derogatory labels aimed at your fellow citizens who are trying to draw attention to the seriousness of our relative tax burden...?



You know, there are some people who would love to see America go under and they are counting on that sort of irrationality to divide us....So, keep it up!

I was a fiscal hawk before I knew that was a term for it. The tea partiers, if successful, will get Republicans elected. If they are very successful, they will put the Republican party back in power.

I am not capable of harboring the belief that putting the GOP back in power will be in any way meaningfully different than the last time the GOP was in power, therefore I have no interest in supporting the tea partiers.