Tag: Tea Baggers

Poll: Nearly Half of Tea Baggers Are Christian Extremists

Jon Ponder

A year ago, the Republicans who astroturfed the tea party phenomenon were adamant that it was a secular “movement” focused on fiscal issues and not on the culture wars. At that point, there was disaffection between the party and its extremist base. The GOP brand had been damaged by the incessant bigotry and invective streaming from the religious right, while the evangelicals and others were disappointed that the GOP had made so little progress on its issues — restricting the right to abortion and the civil rights of gays, for example — during the 12 years it controlled Congress and the eight years of the Bush presidency.

Another unsurprising result: 60 percent of the GOP-tea bagger base say their most trusted source of news is the Fox channel, which broadcasts Republican Party propaganda.

Lately, however, the tea party candidates have been backing away from fiscal issues, the specifics of which are political nonstarters — and trotting out old “culture war” issues from the 1990s. Top Senate tea bagger Jim Demint of South Carolina recently revived his call for banning from the teaching profession women (but not men) who have premarital sex and gays. Five of the tea baggers running for Senate — Sharron Angle of Nevada, Ken Buck of Colorado, Joe Miller of Alaska, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Rand Paul of Kentucky — advocate using the government to force women to have babies, even when the father is the woman’s rapist or a family member.

It’s not surprising then that this new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute finds that nearly half of tea baggers are holdovers from the religious extremist base:

Eight out of ten Americans who identified with the Tea Party were Christians and 47 percent said they were part of the Christian conservative movement, the poll found.

But the grassroots movement (sic) remains a small part of the population overall. Christian conservatives make up 22 percent of the population but those who favor the Tea Party only comprise half of that, about 11 percent of the population. An overwhelming majority of Americans, 94 percent, who support the Tea Party movement were white men and more than half were 50 or older, according to the survey.

The poll found overwhelming support, 80 percent, for Sarah Palin, and 75 percent opposition to Pres. Obama.

Another unsurprising result: 60 percent of the GOP-tea bagger base say their most trusted source of news is the Fox channel, which broadcasts Republican Party propaganda.

Rove’s Super PAC Sets $52 Million Goal

Trish

$52 million

The fundraising goal of American Crossroads, the “Super PAC” led by Karl Rove whose major donors will not be revealed, thanks to disclosure filing deadlines, until after the midterm election. American Crossroads is one of at least a dozen such rightwing groups, which solicit donations from multinational corporations under the terms of the “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision.

Breitbart Hosts Tea Bagger Rally in Beverly Hills and Racism Breaks Out

Jon Ponder

Yeah, big shock. I know.

In August, the RNC abruptly canceled a fundraiser in Beverly Hills that was to be headlined — not by GOP top-draw candidates like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina — but by one of the new lead GOP race-baiters, Andrew Breitbart.

Man with tea bags stapled to hat photographed by Los Angeles Times at Beverly Hills tea party rally in September 2010
Man with tea bags stapled to hat photographed by Los Angeles Times at Beverly Hills tea party rally in September 2010
Breitbart was all over the news at the time because his fingerprints were all over the racist scandals confronting the GOP and its Fox channel on cable, including particularly the video that had bee deceptively edited to portray Shirley Sherrod, a civil rights activist and federal employee, as being racist toward white people. The RNC insisted then that the fundraiser would be rescheduled, but, as I predicted then, “…it’s safe to say the RNC is rescheduling its Breitbart fundraiser for either the 12th of Never or possibly the 14th of Not-Gonna-Happen.”

It wasn’t a fundraiser, but last weekend, Breitbart did attend a tea bagger rally in Beverly Hills. There were a few celebrities there — if you define “celebrity” down to people lower in Hollywood claim to fame than the Kardashians, by which I mean Pat Boone and Victoria Jackson.

(And this was literally a tea bagger rally, as the Los Angeles Times photographed one attendee with tea bags stapled to his headgear.)

Breitbart spoke, of course, as did serveral others but the white people on the stage stood aside to allow one of the few African Americans in the crowd of 200 get to the heart of what animated the tea party movement from the outset and what drew them all together in Beverly Hills that morning:

[…]

NV Sen: Angle Says Woman Attacked at Event by Tea Bagger Thug Was Asking for It

Jon Ponder

If you’re just tuning into the story about the fracas at a Harry Reid-Sharron Angle campaign event in Nevada Thursday night, here’s how the local NBC station reported the incident:

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Confusing Tea Baggers with the Facts Again: Like Murkowski, O’Donnell Ran Write-In Campaign in 2006

Trish

Tea baggers hurling the “sore loser” insult at Sen. Lisa Murkowski for announcing she will be a write-in candidate this fall should remember 2006, according to NPR’s “Political Junkie” Ken Rudin. That was the year Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell did the same thing.

An e-mail from the Tea Party Express on Sunday said that by waging her write-in effort, Murkowski “showed utter contempt for the people of Alaska who rejected her candidacy in the Republican primary.”

O’Donnell was the “sore loser” in 2006

Levi Russell, the communications director of the TPE, added, “Senator Murkowski is a sore loser. Not all the hanging chads in the world can undo the fact that she lost…

Chuck DeVore, the conservative California assemblyman who lost the GOP Senate primary this year, had this to say on Friday: “Blatantly disrespecting voters in Alaska, Murkowski decided that primary results didn’t matter.”

Amy Kremer, the chairman of the Tea Party Express, said this… “She was fired by the people of Alaska. They said it was time for her to go…”

And Sarah Palin, a Murkowski foe whose backing for the ultimate primary winner, Joe Miller, was seen as crucial, Tweeted this: “Primary voters spoke. Listen to the people, respect their will; w/a 40-pt incumbent lead & $2.8 million war chest, voters chose Joe instead.”

[…]

Sanity and Fear Will Collide in Washington Events

Trish

RallySanityWatchers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report know about the “competing” rallies planned in Washington on Halloween weekend, a couple of days before the midterm elections. Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity seems to be beating out Stephen Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive in the Facebook fans department.

On the Rally to Restore Sanity Facebook page, there is an open challenge to come up with 25 things that would not help restore sanity at the event. Among the suggestions:

  • Talking about the miracle of the size of the crowd
  • Wearing a McCain/Palin 2008 campaign button
  • Wearing the American flag as an article of clothing or an accessory
  • Bringing small rugs, turning toward FOX “News” and praying six times during the rally
  • Safety pinning copies of our birth certificates to our chests
  • Starting a movement to change the National Anthem to “The Thong Song” because “The Star Spangled Banner” is anti-colonialist
  • Inviting a local coven to provide insight on the Delaware Senate race
  • Have speeches fact-checked by Andrew Breitbart

There’s also a call for slogans for hand-painted signs but so far, the results are more earnest than funny. Among the better submissions are, “FOX–the only network where you are dumber after you watch it,” and “Sarah Palin is proof you’ll never go poor appealing to the lowest common denominator.”

Can you do better? Share your suggestion for either category in the comments.

Verbatim

Trish

This week saw some very surprising results in some Republican primaries, as Tea Party candidates defeated establishment figures. And this all has the effect of pushing the Republican party further to the right, and pushing it so far that it may well be approaching the city limits of Crazy Town now.

— John Oliver, Daily Show correspondent, commenting on the primary win in the Delaware Senate race by marketing consultant Christine O’Donnell. Oliver made the comment on the podcast he co-hosts with fellow comedian Andy Zaltzman, The Bugle.