alli snow

10 days left until another round of Tax Day Tea Parties take place across the country, and there's some interesting polls out regarding the Tea Party movement.

Ed at Hot Air pretty much says it perfectly, so I'm just going to piggyback on him.

For the past few months, media outlets have described Tea Party followers as racist, reactionary, Birthers, and just about every insult one could find in the dictionary. CNN’s Anderson Cooper helped popularize a sexual slur as a description for the group that others in the media continue to use: teabaggers. However, a new poll by the Winston Group of a thousand registered voters returned some surprising results, including the fact that 13% of the Tea Party followers are Democrats:

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Racist, reactionary, teabagging Democrats, I guess...

Then Gallup has a poll showing that Tea Party's are actually a pretty decent demographic representation of America:

Tea Party supporters skew right politically; but demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large. That's the finding of a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted March 26-28, in which 28% of U.S. adults call themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement.

Interestingly, a Rasmussen poll puts the Tea Party movement up against Obama himself:

On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.

Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly feel closer to the Tea Party and most Democrats say that their views are more like Obama’s. Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 50% say they’re closer to the Tea Party while 38% side with the President.

The Tea Party vs Congress numbers are more laughable: 47% to 26%.

Dan Quayle is worried about the Tea Party 'going Perot', i.e. becoming a spoiler in upcoming elections.

There's a well-worn path of third-party movements in American history, and it leads straight to a dead end. A cause gathers strength, and its message speaks to millions; then, amid the excitement, a new political party is born, only to perform poorly on Election Day and disappear a cycle or two later. In practice, all that's achieved is a fragmenting of the vote, usually to the benefit of whichever major party the movement had set out to oppose.

Personally, I'm not pro Tea Party-Party. I think Dan is essentially correct about 3rd parties; we've seen it happen in the past. I would rather the TP movement focus on influencing the existing party that they most resemble ideologically, which is the GOP. If these numbers are anything to go by, maybe Dan should be warning the Republican Party not to 'go Perot'.

A dumbass from a political comm I'm on posted this recently, and I thought the Christians on my f-list would get a laugh out of it.

On Facebook, ElJay, on billboards, welcome signs and city walls (not to mention bumperstickers... no wait, I just did mention bumperstickers), I am constantly having Christian pride thrown in my face. For instance, I wake up at 6 am to make some coffee and check the Facey-book only to get a wall full of family and friends all proudly declaring their Christianity,and boy are they are ever proud, it is almost like they are angry about it.

Well, screw you too, I guess...

Why do Christians have to be so in our face? My own fundamentalist background has me confused on this issue... as any good quasi-Calvinsist knows, being a Christian amounts to being picked and imposed upon. Yet for all the fundie quasi-Calvinist congregations out there, they speak as if their pride is a measure of their choice or ability in "making a stand for Jesus" or some such nonsense. What a bunch of political theater.

Christians, why are you so proud? What are you proud of, anyway? Was it a lot of work getting the Christian badge? Is it like an achievement or something? Are there trials? A gauntlet maybe?

Keep it in your houses and in your own private buildings.

Sheesh.

I'm tempted to rewrite his/her/its whole hissy fit but replace 'Christian' with 'Muslim' or, even better 'gay' pride.

I'll say it again: dumbass.

...on American curling at the Olympics:

We probably should treat curling more like Canada does. They take children when they are very young and train them in nothing but curling. These people are considered gods among the average Canadian and given the choicest maple syrup and moose meat. And when they are no longer able to compete in curling, they are shot in the head to make sure they can’t pass on Canadian curling secrets.

A-HA! That explains it!

Marvel Comics continues to make friends, influence people

Oh, here's another good one:

When you criticize Obama, THE TERRORISTS WIN.