Day: June 25, 2010

It’s kind of like watching midget wrestling — there seems to be a real fight going on, but it’s funny!

Yesterday, a group of Tea Party activists tried to hold a news conference to denounce the Florida Tea Party political party for fielding phony candidates in the midterm elections, but members of the Florida Tea Party out-activisted the Tea Party activists when they showed up and turned the press conference into a town hall meeting. Apparently, there was a whole lot of hollering going on. Just like last summer, during the health care “debate!”

The Orlando Sentinel sums up the situation this way:

The Central Florida Tea Party Council, a loose alliance of leaders in the local movement, have accused Florida Tea Party founders Fred O’Neal and Doug Guetzloe of being in league with Democrat U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson to help his re-election. The Florida Tea Party has put forward a candidate against Grayson, Peg Dunmire, but the activists think she is simply a spoiler candidate meant to siphon votes away from Grayson’s Republican challenger.

That theory widened last week, when a slate of previously unknown candidates came forward under the Florida Tea Party banner. State Republican Party leaders say it’s a Democratic Party conspiracy.

The Florida Tea Party says it is a legitimate party that is now being targeted by the Republican establishment. O’Neal, the party chairman, said some of its candidates have been threatened by representatives of the Republican Party. Guetzloe, a longtime Orlando political consultant, was kicked off his own radio talk show this week by the owners of 810-AM (WEUS), which he attributes to GOP intimidation. The station’s owner said the reason was low ratings.

NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll:

[The] public continues to blame George W. Bush more for the state of the economy than it does Obama.

According to the poll, a combined 40 percent say that Bush and his administration’s policies are “solely” or “mainly” responsible for the current economic conditions, while just 27 percent say the same of Obama and his policies.

Overall, 29 percent see Bush in a positive light, versus 50 percent who view him negatively — similar to his numbers when he left office in Jan. 2009.

Bush’s 29 percent in the current poll from the current NBC/WSJ poll represents a 7 point jump from the final CBS poll taken during his presidency. His approval was 22 percent in January 2009.

Jon Ralston in the Las Vegas Sun:

The Rasmussen poll released Thursday found [GOP nominee Sharron] Angle leading [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid by 48-41, down from 50-39 in a survey by the same firm right after the primary. The poll of 500 likely voters taken this week (margin of error of 4.5 percent) would seem to indicate Angle is holding her own despite a pummeling on television and in the media. And a majority of Nevadans (53 percent) favor repealing health care reform, one of Reid’s signature achievements. That’s the good news for Angle.

But, as the Rasmussen write-up reports, it appears Angle’s bounce is over. And even more ominous for her, her unfavorable rating (47 percent) is nearly identical to Reid’s (49 percent). The ineluctable fact that more Nevadans feel “very unfavorably” about Reid (43 percent) than about Angle (33 percent) is the difference in the race.

And:

In the NBC/WSJ poll, the only other issue close to as negative a candidate attribute for voters (23/62) was someone who “supported the economic policies of George W. Bush,” so the 43rd president still can be used as an effective club.

Those numbers certainly show a path to victory for Reid. But the poll also showed it could be paved with destructive potholes. The negativity of the public toward the president and especially Congress is apparent.