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‘The System Is Broken’: More From a Poll of Tea Party Backers
New York Times ^ | April 17, 2010 | MEGAN THEE-BRENAN and MARINA STEFAN

Posted on 04/18/2010 4:11:11 AM PDT by reaganaut1

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll looks at the 18 percent of Americans who consider themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement.

On the whole, the supporters dislike President Obama and Congress and say that the government in Washington cannot be trusted. Most say that the country is seriously off course, and that all members of Congress should be replaced, yet most say the country does not need a third party.

The nationwide telephone poll, of 1,580 adults, was conducted April 5 through 12. For the purposes of analysis, Tea Party supporters were oversampled, for a total of 881, and then weighted to their proper proportion in the poll.

The following quotes were obtained in interviews with respondents after the poll was completed.

...

Richard Harris, 61, truck driver, St. Petersburg, Fla., independent

“I’m an extreme conservative. Government should do the military and the roads and just about nothing else. They foul everything up if they do. The private sector always does things better. I see less and less need for government. They call themselves my representatives, but basically they don’t represent me. They’re forever saying things like we need to reach across the aisle. Well, I don’t want you to reach across the aisle. The other side wants to control my life, overtax me and spend in insane ways.”

Jeff Harr, 39, information technology worker, Centreville, Va., independent

“If you allow government to continue to grow, you lose more and more control — control of your money, of your future, of everything. We’d rather deal with a smaller, more useful government by the people, as it was meant to be. That’s what fuels the anger of the Tea Party movement. It wasn’t the election of Obama, per se, but the sudden acceleration of government control.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: angrymob; teaparty
The Tea Parties make sense to me. I'll give the Times a little credit for letting them explain their views, but their editorial page (Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, Charles Blow) will continually slander the Republican party and the Tea Party as inherently racist.
1 posted on 04/18/2010 4:11:11 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

If you stand back and look at this...it’s more of a ‘movement’ than a ‘party’.

You’ve got a group of mostly independents, a fair number of Republicans tired of their party, and then a small number of Democrats who are flatly dissatisfies (note: in southern states...this group is larger than the media thinks).

They will end up influencing not only the senate and house elections in November...but they could also influence the state elections as well (meaning the census count and redrawing of districts will be influenced by the tea movement).


2 posted on 04/18/2010 4:20:28 AM PDT by pepsionice
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To: reaganaut1
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll looks at the 18 percent of Americans who consider themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement.

The key point here is the exact wording of the question. Wording variations can swing this number from 18%, which is close to the lowest imaginable, up over 50%. Considering that everyone outside San Francisco, DC, NYC, and Hollywood knows several normal neighbors who are at least sympathetic to the Tea Party, it is no longer practical to pretend that this is a fringe movement. We'll pretend instead that it is a small movement and perhaps that while the Tea Party is "racist", at least it's subtle or unintended racism for some of them.

3 posted on 04/18/2010 4:20:46 AM PDT by Pollster1 (Natural born citizen of the USA, with the birth certificate to prove it)
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To: pepsionice

I wish my district would be re-drawn. It includes right of center Tampa but convolutes ti include far left black population centers of Manatee and Pinellas county. This makes it “safe for a Socialist”.


4 posted on 04/18/2010 4:32:52 AM PDT by screaminsunshine (i)
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To: reaganaut1

I believe social media and email are two of the most powerful tools we have in countering the lies and spin.

Please forward these links to anyone who has been lied to by the media and politicians about the Tea Party Movement.

(Which of course is everybody),

“The True Face of the Tea Partiers”

Part One:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tarzantripes2#p/a/u/1/_Pm1k7MK850

Part Two:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tarzantripes2#p/a/u/0/NDQWkBcq3qw


5 posted on 04/18/2010 10:05:55 AM PDT by Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears (Pray for our leaders: Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin.)
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To: reaganaut1

From the Times website:

Several thousand random phone numbers were screened for Tea Party supporters and qualifying adults were interviewed as part of the April national poll, along with callbacks to Tea Party supporters from a February poll, yielding a total of 881 respondents. They were weighted to their proper proportion of the population (about 18 percent) as determined in the February and April surveys.

In other words, they designed the poll based on the results of a previous poll. My BS meter pegged.


6 posted on 04/19/2010 7:08:52 AM PDT by sasquatch
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