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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,...

Boxer: Dems need to match Tea Party energy as midterm elections near By Sean J. Miller - 04/17/10 02:07 PM ET Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) warned that Democrats must match the Tea Party's energy and enthusiasm or face the consequences in November. "At this point, I think the polls are showing that there is more enthusiasm with the tea party party," Boxer said before taking the stage at the California Democratic Party's convention in Los Angeles Saturday. "I think it is absolutely a fact that we have to match that enthusiasm." According to the Sacramento Bee she added, "I'm just...

In the shadow of government buildings in downtown Tucson, about 2,000 people gathered today for the Tea Party event. Many carried flags and balloons at the packed plaza in Presidio Park. Several posters are aimed at Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. One depicted Donald Trump telling Giffords she's fired. Andrew McMurrich, 43, a former police officer, carried a sign that read: "Stop wasteful spending" "We understand that taxes are necessary to support a government," McMurrich said. "But - especially at the local level - there are a lot of funds that have been misappropriated." He said the city puts too much emphasis...

Tea party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, tend to be Republican, white, male, and married, and their strong opposition to the Obama administration is more rooted in political ideology than anxiety about their personal economic situation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters look like Republicans in many ways, but they hold more conservative views on a range of issues and tend to be older than Republicans generally. They are also more likely than Republicans as a whole to describe themselves...

Tomorrow Americans across the country will be doing two things, paying their federal taxes and gathering to protest what Barack Obama is doing to our country. We have many reasons to be spitting mad but here’s a list of why Americans are in a sour mood today. There aren’t any jobs to be found. Currently 5.5 people are competing for every available job. Americans receiving food stamps are now at a record 39.4 million and a new record has been set each month since The Mistake- in-Chief took office. Home foreclosures are at record levels and show no sign of...

Sixty-six percent (66%) believe that America is overtaxed. Only 25% disagree. Lower income voters are more likely than others to believe the nation is overtaxed.

There was a time, oh, a week or two ago, when the mainstream media portrayed the tea-party movement as an assortment of crazed angry extremist redneck racist idiots. What changed? The headline we've given this column is a phrase coined by the conservative writer Tom Bethell to refer to the media's attitude toward conservatives who veer leftward. What we're about to describe is a bit different: more an epiphany on the media's part than a change in the object of coverage. It seems unlikely that the tea-partiers have suddenly become mainstream. Yet that's what you'd think from reading some of...

<p>They've been portrayed variously as angry fringe elements, often inarticulate, potentially violent and merely Republicans in sheep's clothing or disgruntled pockets of conservatives blindly lashing out at a left-handed President Obama and the same side of his Democratic Party finally getting its chance to drive home a liberal agenda after eight years of Republican rule and six under a centrist Bill Clinton.</p>

The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group. Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.

If the experience of this state’s two Democratic House members is any indication, the raw emotion and mistrust emanating from last summer’s congressional town halls never really went away. Instead, the unrest simmered over the ensuing months only to return to a boil when Rep. Carol Shea-Porter and Rep. Paul Hodes, who is running for U.S. Senate, returned home to meet with their constituents here during the first week of the Easter recess. Their public events provided a bracing reminder to Democrats that the political pivot from health care to economic and financial issues is going to be much more...

As reported by The Hill, a Winston Group survey did three phone surveys of registered voters from December to February. Of the 3,000 interviewed, 17% identified themselves as members of the Tea Party movement. Of that 17%, less than six out of ten were Republicans. Nearly 30% said they were independents, and 13% identified themselves as Democrats, exploding the myth that Tea Party activists are a homogeneous group of angry conservatives. Read the full report here: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/90541-survey-four-in-10-tea-party-members-dem-or-indie

WASHINGTON DC (April 1, 2010) — Tea Party activists may be ardent supporters of economic conservatism but are similar to the overall electorate when it comes to economic priorities, according to the findings of a new report released by The Winston Group today on the political movement. In one of the most extensive looks to date at just who Tea Party activists are, how they think, and the ideas that matter to them, the report found that 17% of the people polled considered themselves “part of the Tea Party movement” and more than four in ten Tea Party members said...

There is danger for Democrats in recent attempts to dismiss the tea party movement as violent racists deserving of contempt. Demonizing these folks may energize the Democrats' left-wing base. But it is a big turnoff to voters who have problems with the Democratic agenda that have nothing to do with racism. Putting a racial lens on the tea party activists may also help Democrats by painting congressional Republicans into a corner as debate begins on immigration reform. Hispanic voters are going to be looking at Republicans and their tea party supporters for evidence of racism in any effort to block...

Their faces sometimes twisted in anger, 'tea party' followers have been called neo-Klansmen and knuckle-dragging hillbillies. To be sure, angry town halls, the N-word thrown at black congressmen, and signs comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler play into the hands of the movement's critics. And demonizing tea party activists tends to energize the Democrats' left-of-center base. But political experts say that many such criticisms are near-sighted, if not outright inappropriate – and ultimately may miss the point. Indeed, polls suggest that tea party activists are not only more mainstream than many critics suggest, but that a majority of them are...

55% of Tea Party members are women versus 45% men, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last week. 77% of all of them voted for John McCain, and 88% of them are white. Barack Obama won the Presidency with the help of black women, as a Pew Center analysis explains. These black women experienced the highest turnout number in history - 66% - matching overall white voter turnout which actually decreased. 95% of black women voted for Barack Obama. The Sarah Palin phenomenon may have motivated the white Tea Party women, who could significantly impact future elections, since their support...

President Obama and congressional Democrats face an uphill climb to reclaim the support of independent voters who vaulted them to the White House and huge majorities in Congress in 2008. At the end of the bitter, intensely partisan battle to pass Mr. Obama's health care overhaul plan, independent voters, once captivated by hopeful campaign promises, are feeling burned and appear eager to oust Democrats in November's midterm elections. "There is an overall sense of frustration that no one is listening," pollster Scott Rasmussen said about a problem that has plagued the political party in power for decades. Mr. Rasmussen said...

There is a quiet anger boiling in America. It is the anger of millions of hard-working citizens who pay their bills, send in their income taxes, maintain their homes and repay their mortgage loans -- and see their government reward those who do not. It is the anger of small town and Middle American folks who have never been to Manhattan, who put their savings in a community bank and borrow from a local credit union, who watch Washington lawmakers and presidents of both parties hand billions in taxpayer bailouts to the reckless Wall Street titans who brought down the...

("Joe the plumber")

THERE were times when last Sunday’s great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC’s “This Week,” a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his “Hell no, you can’t!” incantation in the House chamber — instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am’s “Yes, we can!” classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic...

Moran, a thickly built Virginian with a temper that runs hot on occasion, was summoned from his inner office by the noise of angry protesters interacting with his staff, according to the congressman's account. He confronted the protesters, prompting staff to step between them and the activists to ask whether Moran needed "bodyguards" to protect him. "We're not protecting him from you, we're protecting you from him," a staffer explained.