President Obama, his administration and the leaders of the Democratic Party have worked hard to minimize and marginalize the Tea Party movement. During an interview with Matt Lauer of NBC’s Today Show earlier this year, President Obama intimated that a radical group was at the core of the movement.
“There’s a part of the tea party movement that actually did exist before I was elected. We saw some of it leading up to my election. There’s some folks who just weren’t sure whether I was born in the United States, whether I was a socialist, right? So, there’s that segment of it which I think is just dug in ideologically and that strain has existed in American politics for a long time. Then I think that there’s a broader circle around that core group, of people who are legitimately concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may be taking on too much.”
President Obama made sure he pointed out that there were some who are legitimately concerned, but if you read his words carefully, you can see that he believes the core of the movement is illegitimate. His words are carefully crafted to make one believe the core of these parties is bad. More recently, we’ve heard the rhetoric from others on the left who refer to the movement as astroturf, label party goers as tea-baggers and now brand those involved in the movement as racists with violent tendencies.
This week, two polls were published that may shed some light on why President Obama and his followers fear the tea party movement. On Monday, Rasmussen published a poll that showed 48% of voters believe tea party members have views closer to their own than does President Obama. 44% of voters have the opposite view. The gap in non-affiliated (independent) voters was even greater at 50% feeling closer to Tea Party goers where 38% felt more in line with President Obama. On Tuesday, a USA Today/Gallup poll showed that 28% of U.S. adults indicate they are Tea Party supporters while 26% say they are opponents. The other 46% polled responded they were neither or had no opinion. One of the other interesting things the poll showed is that the Tea Party is very close in make-up to the overall population of the United States in terms of age, economics, education, and in race. What these polls, taken together, seem to indicate is the Tea Party movement is a growing movement of the people and that the people forming these parties stand in direct opposition to the President’s agenda.
Tea anyone?
