Thom Hartmann vs. Mark Williams: Are the Tea Party's days numbered?
Are the Tea Party's days numbered?
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Upsets cheer Democrats, but
can wins carry into 2012 ???
In Florida:
Jacksonville Mayor-elect Alvin Brown <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">beat a tea party-linked Republican</span> to become
the first Democratic mayor in 20 years.
Democrats nationwide, particularly in Florida, are exulting over upset wins in two elections in the past month they say foretell success in 2012.
In Jacksonville, a longtime GOP stronghold, a Democrat beat a tea party-linked Republican to become the first Democratic mayor in 20 years. In a GOP-dominated upstate New York congressional district, a Democrat won a special election that turned on the debate over Medicare privatization.
The two elections "show that the tea party enthusiasm of 2010 is gone," said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff. "Rick Scott's poll numbers and Republican plans to end Medicare mean they have a toxic mess to deal with going into the 2012 election."
Republicans, on the other hand, say the races are meaningless, blaming the losses on weak Republican campaigns and a spoiler tea party candidate in New York.
In a fundraising email, Senate candidate George LeMieux blamed the New York outcome on "deceptive electioneering … We know the majority of Americans are on our side."
The Jacksonville race, said state GOP spokesman Trey Stapleton, showed that "for a Democrat to win they have to run on a conservative platform," which won't help them in 2012.
Experts say the truth lies somewhere in between: The elections suggest trends that could help Democrats, but as precursors of 2012, there's less there than meets the eye.
Special and local elections "are usually vastly over-interpreted because they are the only game in town," said veteran University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato. Before the 2012 election, "The world will turn over several times."
He recalled that Democratic wins in two congressional special elections before the 2010 election, in New York and Pennsylvania, were read as omens -- but the 2010 election was a GOP landslide.
In this year's New York race, Sabato said, the Medicare issue may have doomed the GOP candidate, but Republicans have plenty of time to defuse it before 2012.
In Jacksonville's partisan race, ideology mattered, but local issues, including downtown renewal, mattered more, said University of North Florida political scientist Matthew Corrigan.
Democrat Alvin Brown, a businessman and civic activist running as a "conservative Democrat" with a no-tax-increase pledge, edged out county Tax Collector Mike Hogan for mayor of the unified Jacksonville-Duval County government.
<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott both campaigned for Hogan.
"It showed that Rick Scott is quickly becoming a huge weight around the neck of every Republican in Florida," said Jotkoff.</span>
Corrigan agreed Scott didn't help much.
Fairly or unfairly, Brown tied Hogan to the education cuts drawing unfavorable publicity for Scott, and Scott's involvement may have made it tough for union leaders long allied with Hogan to turn out their members to work for him, Corrigan said.
<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Hogan's tea party orientation also may not have helped</span>.
On the "Issues" section of Hogan's campaign web site, three of the top four items were "Second Amendment," "Illegal Immigration" and "Protecting the Sanctity of Life" – not typically city hall concerns.
But more important, Corrigan said, were heavyweight GOP donors led by George W. Bush backer Peter Rummell who crossed over to support Brown because of the downtown issue.
"Hogan basically said downtown was just another neighborhood, and ran a commercial using it as a wedge issue," he said. "For city business leaders, that was heresy."
In 2012, Corrigan noted, "Those GOP fundraisers are not going to be backing [President Barack] Obama."
The state Democratic Party put some $500,000 into the race, including $50,000 cash, staff services, TV ads and phone banks, Jotkoff said.
Republicans helped Hogan, but the unusual Democratic effort provided an edge they may not have in 2012, Corrigan said.
Steve Schale, Obama's top Florida strategist in 2008, said the race is significant because it shows Jacksonville is gradually trending more Democratic, like most Florida urban areas. Obama and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink both performed nearly as well there as statewide.
<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">But that doesn't mean Democrats are taking over the county from the GOP.</span>
"I wish it was as simple as 'Win Jacksonville mayor, win Jacksonville presidential,' " he said. "The reality is Obama has to run his own race."
In New York, Democrat Kathy Hochul beat Jane Corwin, a Republican, and Jack Davis, who ran on the tea party ballot line, to win a seat held by Republicans for decades in a district.
Sabato said Medicare was the dominant issue.
Republicans reject that notion.
Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, chairman of Republican Party's congressional campaign committee, attributed the loss to Davis "masquerading under the tea party name."
Davis, 78, a self-made millionaire who funded his own $1.6 million campaign, has run three times for the seat as a Democrat. Republicans say he aimed to siphon off Republican votes.
Davis, however, is not the "liberal Democrat" LeMieux and other Republicans called him. He's an ardent gun-rights backer whose main political concern is outsourcing jobs, which he says both parties accept.
A long-time Republican who backed Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan, he became a Democrat to run against the District 26 Republican incumbent in 2004, he says.
He's well known in the district – he nearly won in 2006 – and has paid for his own campaigns each election cycle since 2004, finance records show.
Analysis of polling data undercuts the notion that Davis was a spoiler, said pollster Don Levy of the Siena College Research Institute.
Siena polls found Davis drew support from Republicans, Democrats and independents. Most of his supporters, however, had unfavorable opinions of both Democrat Hochul and Republican Corwin – 78 percent disliked the Republican.
"If all the Davis backers had come home to their parties, it would have been closer, but not a Corwin win," Levy said.
Sabato said the debate over the Republican proposal to privatize Medicare was decisive. On that issue, Republicans "are fighting a losing battle," he said. "To hold firm is to guarantee more defeats."
He said he expects Republicans to alter the picture with an agreement on the debt-limit increase, a separate vote on Medicare, or some other legislative maneuver before 2012.
In Upstate New York:
Democrat Kathy Hochul has won a heavily Republican New
York congressional seat, in a special election that was re-
garded as a potential bellwether for US national elections
next year. Photograph: David Duprey/AP
Hochul's victory gives the Democrats hope that they can
use voters' anxiety over Republican proposals to overhaul
Medicare to their advantage in November 2012, when all
seats in the House and a third of seats in the Senate are
on the ballot. President Barack Obama will also be seeking
re-election.
At the same time, Republicans find themselves on the poli-
tical defensive on the Medicare issue, exhibiting significant
internal strains for the first time since last autumn's electoral
gains.
With 89% of precincts reporting, Hochul had 48% of the vote,
compared with 42% for Corwin. A third candidate, Jack Davis,
with 9%, also siphoned votes away from Corwin by running as
a supporter of <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement</span>.
Tea Party people less popular than
many other hated minority groups
They may want "their country" back, but
their country doesn't really want them
The tea party: Just a bunch of white
racists
The future is anything but bright for the tea party. The faux grassroots movement started by a GOP consultant and funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers is <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">now less popular than atheists and Muslims and ranks almost as low as the Christian ultra-right in the view of mainstream Americans</span>.
A New York Times/CBS News poll shows tea party support down to 20 percent while unfavorable opinions of the group have doubled.
David E. Campbell, an associate professor of political science at Notre Dame, and Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, are the authors of “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.” In an August 16 op-ed column in The New York Times, they wrote:
The Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic. To embrace the Tea Party carries great political risk for Republicans, but perhaps not for the reason you might think.
Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.
Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.
Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.
Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.
Putnam and Campbell, for the last five years, have studied and researched national political attitudes. They interviewed more than 3,000 American voters. They found the party’s “origin story” was more fantasy than fact.
They write:
Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.
What Putnam and Campbell found coincides with earlier findings of research by Capitol Hill Blue. <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">The tea party did not grow out of the grassroots but was created in the conference room of the office of GOP consultant Eddie Mahe in Washington in a project for former Republican Congressional leader Dick Armey and Charles and David Koch.</span>
That work created a phony group called “Citizens for a Sound Economy,” which later morphed into the tea party.
Putnam and Campbell found that tea partiers are “overwhelmingly white,” that <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">they have a lower “regard for immigrants and blacks”</span> than other, more mainstream Republicans and they are — for the most part — longtime social conservatives who oppose abortion and want to see religion play a more prominent role in politics and governments.
Putnam and Campbell say tea partiers “seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.”
They conclude:
On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans. Indeed, at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, today’s Tea Party parallels the anti-Vietnam War movement which rallied behind George S. McGovern in 1972. The McGovernite activists brought energy, but also stridency, to the Democratic Party — repelling moderate voters and damaging the Democratic brand for a generation. By embracing the Tea Party, Republicans risk repeating history.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/41744
Crashing the Tea Party
GIVEN how much sway the Tea Party has among Republicans in Congress
and those seeking the Republican presidential nomination, one might think
the Tea Party is redefining mainstream American politics.
But in fact <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">the Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public
opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit,
its brand was becoming toxic.</span> To embrace the Tea Party carries great
political risk for Republicans, but perhaps not for the reason you might
think.
Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New
York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an
unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent
had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have
slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40
percent.
Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public
these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks
lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both
Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned
groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that
approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.
The strange thing is that over the last five years, Americans have moved
in an economically conservative direction: they are more likely to favor
smaller government, to oppose redistribution of income and to favor private
charities over government to aid the poor. While none of these opinions are
held by a majority of Americans, the trends would seem to favor the Tea
Party. So why are its negatives so high? To find out, we need to examine
what kinds of people actually support it.
Beginning in 2006 we interviewed a representative sample of 3,000 Americans
as part of our continuing research into national political attitudes, and
we returned to interview many of the same people again this summer. As a
result, we can look at what people told us, long before there was a Tea
Party, to predict who would become a Tea Party supporter five years later.
We can also account for multiple influences simultaneously — isolating the
impact of one factor while holding others constant.
Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea
Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually,
the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long
before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have
contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the
single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.
What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature
of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four
years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea
Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire
to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or
even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.
So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white,
but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for
immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they
still do.
More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 —
opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a
Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today
was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics.
And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious”
elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want
religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say
their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file,
who are more concerned about putting God in government.
This inclination among the Tea Party faithful to mix religion and politics
explains their support for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota
and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Their appeal to Tea Partiers lies less in what
they say about the budget or taxes, and more in their overt use of religious
language and imagery, including Mrs. Bachmann’s lengthy prayers at
campaign stops and Mr. Perry’s prayer rally in Houston.
Yet it is precisely this infusion of religion into politics that most Americans
increasingly oppose. While over the last five years Americans have become
slightly more conservative economically, they have swung even further in
opposition to mingling religion and politics. It thus makes sense that the
Tea Party ranks alongside the Christian Right in unpopularity.
On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are
increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans.
Indeed, at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, today’s Tea Party
parallels the anti-Vietnam War movement which rallied behind George S.
McGovern in 1972. The McGovernite activists brought energy, but also
stridency, to the Democratic Party — repelling moderate voters and
damaging the Democratic brand for a generation. By embracing the Tea
Party, Republicans risk repeating history.
David E. Campbell, an associate professor of political science at Notre
Dame, and Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, are
the authors of “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/opinion/crashing-the-tea-party.html?_r=2
Does Romney's candidacy mean
tea party power has fizzled?
McClatchy Newspapers
Steven Thomma
April 10, 2012
WASHINGTON — It dominated the country's politics just two years ago, a grassroots rebellion that rolled through the Republican Party, helped seize power in Washington and threatened to upend the established order for years to come.
Now, the tea party is not what it was. As the Republicans wrap up their quest for a 2012 presidential nominee, their choice of Mitt Romney over Rick Santorum signals a shift back to a more traditional approach.
Tea Party Santorum - Conceded
Romney's victory, sealed with Santorum's decision Tuesday to suspend his challenge, was a triumph of political pragmatism over ideology, a cool calculation by primary voters and the party establishment that the most important thing was picking someone who could win, not necessarily someone who should win.
In so doing, they set aside some of the passions that roiled the party just two years ago. Fed by a backlash against President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress, those passions helped seize the House of Representatives. But they also led the party to purge moderates in states such as Colorado, Delaware and Nevada who could have won Democratic seats in the Senate.
Fresh from 2010, many Republicans raced into the campaign for the 2012 nomination thinking it was a natural extension of tea party politics.
Tea Party Bachmann Conceded
Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota proclaimed herself the chair of a tea party caucus in Congress, seized TV airtime to give a tea party response to Obama's State of the Union address, and then sought the nomination to challenge him. She boasted of her opposition to raising the nation's debt ceiling last year even if that forced immediate, deep cuts in spending.
She faded before the first votes were cast.
Others followed in search of the tea party label, one of social and economic conservative purity, unsullied by Washington insider status and unmatched by Romney, whose record of past support for health care mandates and abortion rights, they said, made him untrustworthy no matter what he said now.
Tea Party Perry, Cain, Gingrich, Santorum - All Waned
Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Santorum. All eventually waned.
In Wisconsin, site of the last primary and the contest that finally broke Santorum, Bonnie Adkins of Mukwonago summed up the feelings of a lot of Republican voters.
Drawn to Santorum by emotion — "He spoke from the heart" — she turned to Romney as she grew more pragmatic. "My number one priority is to defeat Obama. The big O's got to go," she said. "Romney has the better chance."
Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in New York, said, "There was an element of the Republican Party electorate where pragmatism became paramount."
That was particularly true this year given Republican desire to defeat Obama. Republicans might have been more open to taking a general election chance on a candidate more aligned with the tea party if the seat open had no Democratic incumbent running,
But the movement also has faded.
Take the early caucuses and primaries. Given the 2010 results, Republicans hoped the spillover would mean a surge of new tea party voters jumping at the chance to pick a conservative nominee to take on Obama. Instead, turnout in early caucuses and primaries was weak.
Tea party supporters did vote, but they were not first-time participants. They were, said Miringoff, "rebranded Republicans."
At the same time, the label turned as much into a warning as a boast.
Wisconsin was a telling study of the fate of tea party politics.
Backed by the tea party, Republican Scott Walker won the governor's seat in 2010. He challenged public employee unions in a budget fight last year and now faces a statewide recall vote in June. Polls suggest it will be close.
Republicans support Walker. But their embrace of the tea party is lukewarm. On primary day last week, 56 percent of voters said they supported the movement, according to exit polls. Another 25 percent were neutral, and 17 percent of Republican primary voters opposed it.
Nationally, the numbers are worse. A recent Fox News Poll found 30 percent of registered voters had a favorable opinion of the movement, down from 35 percent in 2010. At the same time, 51 percent had an unfavorable opinion, up sharply from 22 percent in 2010.
Ultimately, the tea party may have seen its peak in 2010, particularly in the glare of the media.
"They were never the dominant component of the Republican coalition, now or in 2010," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. "They tended to do better in low-turnout primaries or in states dominated by conventions. That doesn't mean they were unimportant. They remain important, but they are not a dominant source in the party."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/04/...andidacy-mean-tea.html#storylink=omni_popular
