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Tea Party Tag

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 28, 2013 2 Comments
As we head into the New Year, I thought this might be an appropriate time for an homage to two of my favorite things: the Tea Party and craft beer! Approaching the 5th anniversary of the start of the Tea Party movement, media types and establishment politicos are very upset that we are still alive and kicking! The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spending $50 Million to take on the Tea Party in 2014 Senate primaries.
"Our No. 1 focus is to make sure, when it comes to the Senate, that we have no loser candidates," Chamber strategist Scott Reed told the Journal. "That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket." The financial support, which The Hill reported would pour at least $50 million into the campaigns of centrist GOP candidates, is part of an aggressive approach toward tea party Republicans since the 16-day October government shutdown.
One of my favorite Sunday morning activities is hearing the talking heads get excited about the impending Tea Party demise, complete with interviews with Washington's intelligentsia. The Atlantic article, Why the Tea Party Isn't Going Anywhere, is replete with many examples of our "extremism" and offers insight to the continued outrage at our existence.
...[A]t least three successive national election defeats will be necessary to even begin to break the determination and leverage of Tea Party adherents. Grassroots Tea Partiers see themselves in a last-ditch effort to save “their country,” and big-money ideologues are determined to undercut Democrats and sabotage active government. They are in this fight for the long haul. Neither set of actors will stand down easily or very soon.
Despite the authors' tainted view of our motives, these three principles are at core of most Tea Party activism: 1) Individual liberty 2) Fiscal responsibility 3) Limited government In fact, San Diego blogger Dean Riehm reminds everyone about the benefits of limited government and sensible deregulation with a brilliant piece on the craft beer industry.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 23, 2013 27 Comments
There has been a not too subtle attempt this week to smear the Tea Party as racist and violent in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. What does the Tea Party have to do with the assassination? It's an outgrowth of the discredited and time-worn eliminationist narrative, that the modern "right wing" and the Tea Party in particular are the inheritors of the "paranoid style of politics" from the 1960s. The logic, if you call it that, is that Dallas was a city infused with hate and anti-Catholic bigotry, that bigotry was reflective of a larger Southern bigotry including racism, and that the Tea Party is the outgrowth of that racist, bigoted past which led to the assassination. There is a problem with all this, of course.  Kennedy was killed by a Lee Harvey Oswald, a Commie, not the "right wing." Let me repeat, because this is the internet:

JACK KENNEDY WAS KILLED BY A COMMIE!!!

You would not know that if you read the attempt to portray the Kennedy assassination as the result of right wing, bigoted hatred in the mainstream liberal media and blogosphere: Rich Lowry notes (also see video at bottom of post), The Kennedy Conspiracy in Plain Sight:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 19, 2013 19 Comments
We have addressed many times recently the misleading claim that support for the Tea Party Movement was at historic lows or reflected the near-end of the movement: The ABC News - Washington Post poll released just after midnight has generated headlines for the sharp decline in Obama's favorability ratings by just about every measure, and the growing unpopularity of Obamacare. But there is a hidden gem in the poll that is not receiving much attention.  Support for the Tea Party movement is at 38% for all registered voters, not far below the 41% approval rating and 46% favorability rating for Obama.  Moreover, 46% think the Tea Party has too little/just about right influence versus 43% who think it has too much influence.  49% think the Tea Party political views are about right or too liberal, versus only 40% who think too conservative. It's clear that support for Tea Party political views exceeds support for the movement, likely the result of years of demonization, culiminating in the recent Democratic Party eliminationist rhetoric directed at the Tea Party. In the serious of screen shots below, you can see some interesting details, including that Tea Party support comes from the more educated, and even has substantial support among non-whites, although lower than among whites.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 27, 2013 13 Comments

While looking for something else, I stumbled up this interview by Prof. Glenn Reynolds and the Insta-Wife of Andrew Breitbart from February 2010. It may be the best interview of Andrew I've ever seen. And it's as relevant, if not more so, now as it was back then. There's...

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 27, 2013 36 Comments
Meghan McCain says her Arizona senator dad is “depressed” and “frustrated” with the tea party faction of the Republican Party, which she called “the hyper-conservative wing.” The comments were part of Meghan's promo for her new show, which no one will watch, Raising McCain. As a Tea Party activist, I am all for making both McCains even more frustrated. One of the most important developments in the new conservative movement has been encouraging regular Americans to participate directly in politics. In California, that has meant many have gotten involved in local Republican groups and have become versed in the ways of state party politics and its Byzantine rules. Recently, the Tea Party California Caucus  formed in response to the state Republican Party's continued lack of enthusiasm for formulating and implementing conservative policy. On Canto Talk, I recently had a chance to interview its founder Randall Jordan, as well as California Tea Party coordinator Dawn Wildman.  The caucus recently participated in the California Republican convention in Anaheim; Jordan says they met with "100 % more success" than they were anticipating and now the GOP establishment "can't ignore us and knows we are not going away."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 22, 2013 33 Comments

We've seen years of offensive name calling and antics from Alan Grayson. He called a Federal reserve lobbyist a whore, and most famously claimed that Republicans want people to die quickly. Grayson's latest, however, is his worst yet, via NRO, Dem Rep. Uses Burning KKK Cross to...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 22, 2013 13 Comments
Dick Cheney appeared on Hannity, and stated what all thinking people know to be true, Obama is the radical in Washington, D.C., not the Tea Party: FMR VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: I'm not unsympathetic to the frustration, I think, that's led many Americans to sign on for or become part of the tea party. I'm as frustrated as anybody else can be, but I think we have a situation where the circumstances in Washington, the inability and the unwillingness of the this administration to come to grips with our basic long-term debt problem, for example. The frustration out there is very, very high. And so when I see people talking about the tea party, I don't think of the tea party as extremists the way some of the folks in Washington want to describe them. The extremist in Washington is Barack Obama. He's the guy that wants to fundamentally transform our health care system. He's the guy who has done enormous damage to America's standing in the world. To the extent there is an extremist or radical political view in Washington these days, I believe it is the president of the United States.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2013 17 Comments
The demise of the Tea Party movement has been predicted since its inception in early 2009.  There has been a non-stop demonization of the movement led by Democrats and the media, but frequently joined by party Republicans. There also have been many misleading headlines based on cherry-picked polling, as I demonstrated recently, Congrats @Gallup for inspiring these 5 misleading anti-Tea Party headlines. As to the debt ceiling and budget showdown, you can find what you want in the polling to argue either side. The AP-GFK poll just released found Republicans being blamed more than Democrats, but also found Obama's job approval tanking.   A Pew Survey released a couple of days ago also found Republicans blamed more but by a closer margin, and that there is a large and growing segment who blames both sides or neither. Here's a headline, based on the data in the AP-GfK poll, you probably will not see:

Americans overwhelmingly would choose smaller government, fewer services

Yeah, you heard that right.  60% of those surveyed wanted smaller government, fewer services if the only other choice were bigger government, more services.  That core value, which transcends party lines, is the Tea Pary core value (not even the Republican core value).

 AP-Gfk Poll Q smaller government

Here's another headline, based on the data in the AP-GfK poll, you probably will not see:

Most Americans agree with Tea Party on debt ceiling increase

You read that right.  41% of those surveyed said the debt ceiling should be raised only if conditioned on significant budget cuts plus another 10% who said it should not be raised for any reason. 

AP-Gfk Poll Q debt ceiling increase

I'm not buying the argument that Republicans are committing suicide, even when the argument is made by Republicans. The polling is much tighter than in 1995, when public opinion shift dramatically against Republicans (although it swung back by the next election). From the Pew Survey:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2013 12 Comments

This group of Tea Party supporters in Ithaca decided to carry signs outside Republican Tom Reed's office, which must have felt like a poke in the eye to most Ithacans. Hey, poking Ithaca in the eye is my job! Ed writes: A couple of pictures of the Ithaca Tea...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 05, 2013 15 Comments

I'm not overly enamored of the complaint that Obama will negotiate with the Iranians, Syrians and Russians, but not with Republicans. The complaint sounds a little whiny. But it does prove a point. A point that I made long ago about how Obama treats the Israelis and...

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 29, 2013 11 Comments

No matter how much the elite media and establishment politicos want to kill-off Tea Party, it seems that we citizen activists refuse to roll over and die. If anything, we are pushing back smarter as well as harder. Case-in-point:  Some excellent news about the Tea Party forcing...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 28, 2013 15 Comments
I told you just a couple of days ago that the Gallup headline of a decline in Tea Party popularity was misleading. The misleading headline, ignoring the details of the poll, was picked up far and wide, Congrats @Gallup for inspiring these 5 misleading anti-Tea Party headlines. The Washington Post yesterday, however, revealed that the Tea Party popularity was rising, Obamacare fight reenergizes tea party movement (emphasis added):

WaPo Tea Party Support Rising

The tea party movement rose to prominence in the early years of Obama’s presidency, helping drive a surge of conservative activism that helped flip control of the House to Republicans in 2010. At the time, according to CBS-New York Times polling, nearly a third of Americans considered themselves tea party supporters. The movement’s popularity, though faded, shows signs of growing again: A quarter of Americans in a new CBS-New York Times survey between Sept. 19 and 23 said they support the tea party, up four points from two weeks earlier.
"Oddly" enough, it was really hard to find the poll to which WaPo was referring. The rise in Tea Party popularity in the CBS-New York Times survey didn't get the attention of the misleading Gallup headline.  I could not find any stories about that finding prior to the WaPo article. The rise in Tea Party support didn't get headlines at The Times, or at CBS News which ran this misleading headline about the Gallup poll instead, but nowhere in the article mentioned its own contrary findings:

CBS News Gallup Tea Party 9-26-2013

Eventually I found the poll, here it is. CBS-NYT poll cover The question about Tea Party support shows that Tea Party support rose rapidly this month, is higher than it has been for over a year, and is in the same range it has been in since early 2010, with the exception of the surge in support around the 2010 election:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 26, 2013 23 Comments
I covered earlier the negative spin Gallup put on its recent Tea Party polling.  What showed a stable support/opposition over the last two years -- including a drop in opposition -- was spun as a negative only by comparison to three years ago. Gallup could have titled its report "No real change in Tea Party Support" or "Tea Party Support/Opposition Stable." Instead, Gallup put this spin on it:

Gallup Tea Party Support 9-26-2013

That misleading spin has been picked up and run with across the media, which is trying to tie the supposed decline to Ted Cruz's rise since 2012. But there was no meaningful decline since 2012 -- just 2% within the poll's 3% margin of error.  Support is actually 1% higher than in 2011.  You have to go back three years to the 2010 mid-term pro-Republican wave election, when Tea Party support peaked briefly, to see a substantial decline.  But that substantial decline took place prior to the 2012 election, long before Cruz was in the Senate.

Gallup Tea Party Support Chart 9-26-2013

Even with that, over 1 in 5 Americans still support the Tea Party and half of Americans are neutral.  Considering the demonization of the Tea Party in the media and Washington, D.C., a stable support/opposition is pretty amazing. No one is interested in the details, it's just political gamesmanship. Here are 5 profoundly misleading headlines inspired by Gallup:

1.  The Week -- Why does everyone hate the Tea Party?

Really? 73% of people supporting or being neutral on the Tea Party means everyone hates the Tea Party?

 

The Week - Gallup Tea Party 9-26-2013

2. Taylor Marsh - No One Supports the Tea Party Anymore:

Well, if by "no one" you mean over 1 in 5 Americans, slightly more than self-identify as liberal:

Taylor Marsh Gallup Tea Party 9-26-2013

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 26, 2013 26 Comments
That's not the headline you will see, of course. Instead, Gallup headlines its story about its most recent polling to emphasize the negative about Tea Party support, Tea Party Support Dwindles to Near-Record Low.

Gallup Tea Party Support 9-26-2013

But it you look at Gallups chart, it shows a 2% drop in support for the Tea Party in the past year and a 2% drop in opposition to the Tea Party, and both are near record lows.  Gallup Tea Party Support Chart 9-26-2013 There's only one brief time period when opposition to the Tea Party was significantly lower, but opposition now is right in the 25-29% range it's typically been in.  Tea Party support is significantly lower than three years ago, but about where it was two years ago.  So the drop took place two years ago, not recently as the Gallup headline (picked up in the mainstream media) would have you believe. Why highlight just the drop in support?  Because. Moreover, the percentage of people who consider themselves Tea Pary supporters is slightly larger than those who consider themselves liberal, as measured in Gallup's ideological self-identification survey from 2012. Considering the multi-year war on the Tea Party by Democrats, many Republicans, and the media, it is astounding that the Tea Party continues to stay more or less even in its support over the past two years.  A 2% drop is hardly meaningful, and could just be variations within the margin of error in the poll, which was +/- 3%. Also consider that half the electorate has no opinion one way or the other.  So put it another way, almost 3/4 of the American electorate is not opposed to the Tea Party! Think about it another way, if you were at a dinner table with four other people who represented the American electorate, one of the people at the table would be a Tea Party supporter.  And two others would have no opinion. Be afraid, be very afraid. Update: If Gallup wanted to be completely neutral, it could have written its headline as "Support and Opposition to Tea Party Stable." Instead, Gallup's anti-Tea Party spin is being picked up gladly at outlets such as TPM:

TPM Gallup Tea Party 9-26-2013

This is possibly the dumbest headline of all, from Taylor Marsh:
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