Is public support for the tea party movement fading?
“Throughout the 2010 election cycle, agreement with the Tea Party far outweighed disagreement,” Pew reports. “But as is the case nationwide, support has decreased significantly over the past year; now about as many people living in Tea Party districts disagree (23 percent) as agree (25 percent) with the Tea Party.” |
Note that in both those sets of figures about half the people surveyed had no opinion, suggesting that too much can be made of this new data. |
Are the media scared of Ron Paul?
Are the media scared of Ron Paul? The Texas congressman and GOP presidential candidate believes they are. |
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Representative Paul ticked off the reasons that reporters should list him in the top tier of Republican wannabes. Paul noted that he did well in the Iowa straw poll, has a strong organization, and can raise money. |
But news outlets routinely treat him as a hopeless case, if they mention him at all. Paul says the reason for this is fear, pure and simple. |
Tea Party group to host first Twitter presidential debate
A Tea Party organization is hosting the fist presidential debate solely Through Twitter on July 20.
The debate will feature top Republican presidential candidates responding directly and in real time to questions sent in through Twitter.
The 90-minute event will unfold at 140Townhall.com between 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. EDT and is hosted by TheTeaParty.net.
Confirmed participants include Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), businessman Herman Cain, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.).
Candidates will be tweeting through their Twitter feeds in response to questions sent in from anyone with access to Twitter through @140townhall or email through
info@theteaparty.netThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
. |
Tea Party Express - Make hard decisions
Tea party leader Amy Kremer is chairwoman of the Tea Party Express. She left the real estate and airline industries to enter politics in 2009, helping to found the Atlanta Tea Party. She went on to found Tea Party Patriots, left it amid a dispute, and then joined Tea Party Express. She was the guest speaker at the April 5 Monitor breakfast in Washington. |
“I am asked that question every single day, and honestly I have remained completely neutral…. We have to, because of our partnership with CNN for the first-ever tea party presidential debate” tentatively slated for sometime Labor Day week. |
“We have two very viable parties – the Republican Party and the Democratic Party – and we need to work from within to change those parties. And we don’t need to form a third party, because all you are going to do is split the vote.” |
In Wisconsin’s long shadow, unions and tea partyers face off across US
Across the country, Democratic-backed unions and Republican-backed tea party activists – essentially ideological alter egos – are facing off on the streets. The dueling protesters want to show solidarity with their respective causes and to voice their opinions in a high-stakes debate that could rewrite long-standing social compacts. |
“This is a very polarizing issue that people are now reacting to all over the country,” says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University, in Atlanta. Not including Wisconsin protesters, “the number of people who are actually out demonstrating is pretty small in terms of the electorate, but each side is representative of each party’s base.” |
A similar scene played out in Des Moines on Tuesday, where about 120 tea party activists protested government spending and, nearby, more than 800 union activists defended their collective bargaining rights. Iowa Republicans have proposed weakening union power over public employees, but not eliminating collective bargaining. |
Poison vote looms for tea party freshmen: Raise the national debt limit?
Even though a vote to raise the national debt limit – now just under $14.3 trillion – is months away, House Republican leaders are already preparing their caucus for what could be the toughest vote for a bumper freshman class. |
About half of the 85-member Republican House freshman class ran with backing from tea party groups – all of them on a platform to curb or cap government spending. Many of these candidates slammed Democrats they defeated for previous votes to increase the debt limit – votes, they said, that enabled big government spending. |
Now, they face the other side of the issue: A vote against raising the debt limit means the government could run out of money. Will fiscal responsibility look so appealing if the government essentially shuts down? Read more at www.csmonitor.com |
Where does the tea party philosophy come from? One hint is in its name.
It’s still unclear what contribution the tea party movement – its grass-roots element, its behind-the-scenes funding apparatus, and the surging national candidates it’s brought forward – will make to the good of the republic. |
But one thing for sure: It’s a dream come true for political science departments around the world. It may well do for poli sci what Watergate heroes Woodward and Bernstein did for journalism. Let a thousand doctoral dissertations bloom! |
In a nutshell, the movement’s philosophy can be summed up in its name and imagery: “Taxation without representation,” which in the 21st century means the size and complexity of government. Strip away all the sillier elements (President Obama’s birth certificate) and sometimes threatening fringe (guns and occasional hints of racism) and that’s pretty much it. Read more at www.csmonitor.com |
