CNN Poll: Tea Party losing steam

[polywog999]

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2011/03/30/tea-party-losing-steam-poll/

Seattle PI

The percentage of Americans with an unfavorable view of the Tea Party movement has climbed since last fall, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research poll.

Forty-seven percent of Americans view the right-wing populist movement unfavorably, while just 32 percent take a favorable view of the Tea Party. A similar poll, in November, put “favorables” at 38 percent.

The Tea Party movement burst on the scene in the spring of 2009. Its leaders are currently mobilizing support for even steeper federal budget cuts than those advocated by Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives.

CNN/Opinion Research first polled on the movement in January of last year. At that time, 33 percent had a favorable opinion, 26 percent took an unfavorable view, with 24 percent having no opinion.

The latest poll finding shows that Tea Party “negatives” have reached the same level as those who take an unfavorable view of the Republican and Democratic parties.

The new poll found 46 percent with a favorable view of the Democratic Party, with 48 percent viewing the Democrats unfavorably. Forty-four percent viewed the Republican Party favorably, compared to 48 percent taking an unfavorable view.

The CNN/Opinion Research poll was taken March 11-13, and interviewed 1,023 adult Americans. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.0 percent.

So, is the TP just a here today, gone tomorrow - "Promise Keeper's," kind of deal....or is this just a temporary bump in the road?

[Predicto]

I posted this in another thread, but I thought it might be notable enough to repost.

The lead story in the Washington Times the other day was about how the Tea Party was going to "storm" the Capital today with a major rally to warn Congress to stay in line. Michelle Bachmann, Rand Paul, Mike Pence, Steve King, Jim DeMint and Allen West were the featured speakers, all of the major lights of the tea party movement were there. Fox made a big deal about it too.

Unfortunately, less than 200 or so Tea Partiers showed up. Last year, that would have been 20 thousand at a minimum. I don't know what it means, but I found it surprising.

[@DCGoldPants]

I think their biggest mistake was not trying to run as their own and not as a ®.

They seem kind of extreme these days. When the country needs people to come together, they want the GOP to dig in and not compromise at all. The whole point of America was bringing people together from all over to share freedoms. Not make everybody the same. That's Commie nonsense.

[polywog999]

I posted this in another thread, but I thought it might be notable enough to repost.

The lead story in the Washington Times the other day was about how the Tea Party was going to "storm" the Capital today with a major rally to warn Congress to stay in line. Michelle Bachmann, Rand Paul, Mike Pence, Steve King, Jim DeMint and Allen West were the featured speakers, all of the major lights of the tea party movement were there. Fox made a big deal about it too.

...........

Unfortunately, less than 200 or so Tea Partiers showed up. Last year, that would have been 20 thousand at a minimum. I don't know what it means, but I found it surprising.

Great job, Predicto....you make Bob Seger proud!

[Barney B]

The lead story in the Washington Times the other day was about how the Tea Party was going to "storm" the Capital today with a major rally to warn Congress to stay in line...

Unfortunately, less than 200 or so Tea Partiers showed up.

Don't blame The Washington Times, they delivered their entire readership.

And so far, the Tea Party movement has successfully managed to prevent Obama from:

1 Completely disarming the American populace

2 Outlawing Christianity/enacting Sharia Law

3 Tripling tax rates on all Americans but welfare queens

So maybe the new apathy is associated with the fact that their work here is almost done?

Or maybe the economy is improving, and they're considering that if Obama really is the antichrist, he's an awfully impotent antichrist.

[TheGoodBits]

Don't blame The Washington Times, they delivered their entire readership.

And so far, the Tea Party movement has successfully managed to prevent Obama from:

1 Completely disarming the American populace

2 Outlawing Christianity/enacting Sharia Law

3 Tripling tax rates on all Americans but welfare queens

So maybe the new apathy is associated with the fact that their work here is almost done?

Or maybe the economy is improving, and they're considering that if Obama really is the antichrist, he's an awfully impotent antichrist.

Thank God for the Tea Party.

But seriously, can we stop calling them that now? It really diminishes what was a pretty important and symbolic event in American history. I much prefer "right wing lunatics." But that's just me.

[polywog999]

Don't blame The Washington Times, they delivered their entire readership.

And so far, the Tea Party movement has successfully managed to prevent Obama from:

1 Completely disarming the American populace

2 Outlawing Christianity/enacting Sharia Law

3 Tripling tax rates on all Americans but welfare queens

So maybe the new apathy is associated with the fact that their work here is almost done?

Or maybe the economy is improving, and they're considering that if Obama really is the antichrist, he's an awfully impotent antichrist.

This is something that one of my Tea Party friends would say to me!!!! Yes, I was fooled! Good job.

[Burgold]

This may be because the Tea Party had almost nothing to do with the economy, the deficit or fiscal responsibility. It's mission was to oust the Democrats and weaken President Obama.

With that accomplished a lot of the people more loosley associated with the movement found their energy and interest disipated, esp after people began to really focus on what the TP leaders were saying.

[Larry]

The new poll found 46 percent with a favorable view of the Democratic Party, with 48 percent viewing the Democrats unfavorably. Forty-four percent viewed the Republican Party favorably, compared to 48 percent taking an unfavorable view.

The more I look at that, the more surprised I am.

The way I see it, there should be four types of "voters" in that poll:

• Like D, don't like R
  
• Like R, don't like D
  
• Dislike both
  
• Like both
  

Now, the fact that all four of those numbers are virtually identical, says to me that for every person who dislikes both, there's a person who likes both

And that's just stunning to me. I can understand people who like one but not the other. Those people are called "partisan", and anybody who reads Tailgate knows there's a bunch of them.

But I would have expected a bunch of "dislike both", and virtually no "like both".

[Enter Apotheosis]

Now, the fact that all four of those numbers are virtually identical, says to me that for every person who dislikes both, there's a person who likes both

You're forgetting people with neutral views.

[mjah]

I think their biggest mistake was not trying to run as their own and not as a ®.

Yep.

In the interest of hijacking a seemingly defenseless, very large ready-made Republican political ship, the tea party's supporters managed to miss the fact that they were being flat-out used by the very same party they tried to infiltrate.

It was a Trojan horse turnabout: The GOP happily opened the gate, let the wooden horse get wheeled in, and closed and triple-latched the gate behind it. A handful of tea party trojans emerged, instantly finding themselves surrounded by literally hundreds of rank-and-file Republicans. Republicans who, thanks to the tea party, now had an army of cheering dupes outside, mistakenly rooting for the entire kingdom they blindly imagined was now theirs. It was simply a Republican ploy to get back into some power, and little more. For one half of Congress, it worked. Given the state of the GOP at the time, that's not bad.

(Never mind that the GOP fronted the money, built the horse, and whipped up the ire of the folks outside the gate. Minor details, those.)

It just goes to show: never believe a vacuous demagogue who insists for some reason that you need to "pick a party." It's the same thing as insisting that you need to "sell out" or need to "be fatally compromised." Or, as we'll see play out over the next two years, a lot of both.

Already, a few scant months into the tea-party-office-holder era, it's clear how this thing is going to wind up. The GOP regulars would rather do what they know how to do, which is deal with other dealmakers, than try to coddle fractious naifs who seem to have forgotten that negotiation is part of the modern Congressional job description. This will fix itself quickly, one way or the other. A great many tea party voters will realize, if they haven't already, that they were flat-out had. The politicians they elected will either fall on their swords in the name of their dwindling gaggle of supporters, or learn to negotiate and therefore be accused of abandoning the intractable tea party ideals. But by that point the accusations won't matter, as the more savvy tea-party politicians will be more than happy to jettison the empty first-stage political engine that boosted them to Congressional altitude in the first place.

Since the tea party never managed to successfully court moderates for obvious reasons, this will play out pretty quickly. The message will be clear: become GOP rank-and-file, or else be sent packing. The tea-party hard line won't cut it.

And that's before we even get into the fact that many candidates simply rode the tea party into office without giving a single damn about what it wants long-term. They'll keep on pushing that hard-line position... until they don't anymore. Many of them were never interested in challenging the Washington elite. They were interested in JOINING the Washington elite. And now, there they are. They'll want to stay.

[Nerm]

There are a lot of things I don't like about many of the Tea Party people, but I think there is a lot of condescension in this thread. From what I saw in the last two elections, the Tea Party was more a result of Bush than it was of Obama. There is a huge section of this country that strongly believes that the federal government should be small and focus on things that the states really don’t have the ability to do. I think the Tea Party was the result of a Bush administration that dramatically increased spending, took on an unnecessary war, turned a surplus into a deficit, and signed anything that congress passed. Obama followed this by taking some pretty strong measures to increase spending further and to increase the government’s role in healthcare.

So, if you are a person who believes in small government, are you supposed to go out and vote for republicans or democrats? I think a lot of people feel that both sides are for large government, with the only difference being where the money goes. I think the Tea Party has done well in trying to give people a choice between people who want more government and those that want less.

The rhetoric of some of the morons in the movement and the politicians that cater to them can be stupid. But I do appreciate the option to vote for someone that might want to decrease the size of the federal government, rather than deciding between two people that want to increase the size of the government in different ways.

[Fergasun]

The Tea Party was a way to energize the GOP conservative base by running away from George W. Bush.

It was also a way to brand a backlash against President Obama.

Our country has gone totally schizo in regards to support for political parties.

I want to see a political party that tries to listen to and capture concerns of Americans, not simply use our concerns to craft talking points. But that would mean doing some dirty work, and potentially fighting against things ideologically one is opposed to.

I also want to see honesty and transparency. I mean; for the most part their actions are transparent, just listen to what they say and then believe the opposite. I think the country would feel a lot better if they simply spoke truthfully and honestly, but it would be boring and bring zero energy to the rabid partisans who like "scored earth" politics where anything and everything goes.