The traditional media all seem to agree on this conventional wisdom: the Tea Party movement is the most awesome thing that ever happened to American politics, and so many people are supporting the Tea Party movement that it’s going to rule this country forever and ever, amen.
That’s what you hear now from the newspaper and cable TV “experts,” and obviously whatever they say has to be true, because otherwise they wouldn’t be on TV, would they?
It’s time for a reality check. Let’s look at the numbers from the national poll conducted for CBS News during the Aug. 20-24 time period:
Ahead of a rally in Washington this weekend that some say will test the strength of the Tea Party, a new CBS News poll finds that 29 percent of Americans say they are supporters of the movement. Fifty-four percent say they do not support the Tea Party.
Now, I’m no math expert, but if the Tea Party has the support of 29 percent of the people who are polled and is opposed by 54 percent of those polled, that would seem to indicate that Americans oppose the Tea Party by nearly a two-to-one margin. Am I missing something here?
The CBS poll is hardly an outlier. A Washington Post poll conducted in June with a similarly sized sample of respondents showed that 50 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of the Tea Party compared to 36 percent with a favorable opinion. The Post data also showed the percentage of “unfavorable” opinions of the Tea Party had been growing, not declining, for several months. A Gallup poll in April showed 37 percent support for the Tea Party at a national level.
Look at those results from three independent polls over time: 37 percent national support of Tea Partiers in April, 36 percent support in June, and 29 percent support in August. There seems to be a trend there.
I guess this is another of those instances, as Stephen Colbert has pointed out, where the facts have a liberal bias.
Back to the CBS poll, which also had this finding about a former half-term governor of Alaska:
Palin continues to receive unfavorable ratings from the American public overall. Just 23 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Palin, while 40 percent view her unfavorably.
Democrats (62 percent), moderates (44 percent) and liberals (61 percent) hold decidedly negative views of the former vice presidential nominee.
More than a third of the public (35 percent) is undecided or hasn’t heard enough about Palin to offer an opinion. Fewer Americans now hold a favorable view of Palin than in April, but her ratings are similar to what they were in March and last summer, shortly after she stepped down as governor.
Obviously, those numbers can’t be correct either, because everyone loves Sarah Palin and will elect whoever she endorses in a political race. Just ask Karen Handel.
One Comment
My perception is this: republicans use religious issues/ fervor for votor turnout; yet republicans are much more likely to support death–war, defense spending, death penalty—and much LESS likely to “turn the other cheek” than a liberal pacifist. Now republicans are attempting to talk up the “tea party” movement and become synonamous with it for the same reason–the fervor of its base. In actual fact, if there were no religious or other charity tax breaks, church donations would be substantially less and so would taxes on private residences and businesses. Here in the ‘bible belt’, you’re just as likely to get directions to a destination mentioning a church as you would mentioning a street name or road number. The tea party people were tax/financial consertives first. It is seeing the mostly successful efforts by republicans–to have it viewed as a wing of the republican party (with the financial failure of the most recent Bush era) that turns people off. The interest of the “traditional media” reflects not the merit of the tea party (or any other) movement but rather its own needs for news coverage 24/7. This was also the reason few well-thought stories were done on the pros and cons of going to war in Iraq–war is the golden for news media. However, advertising, including political propaganda, tends to work in this country. Saying anything often enough could make it “true”.