The political positions of those describing themselves as sympathetic to the “Tea Party” represent a vast minority view, far outside of the mainstream positions represented by 2008 voters, according to a new poll commissioned by Project Vote.
The study finds self-described “Tea Partiers,” and their political concerns, are far outweighed by the views of everyone else, despite the absurdly out-of-proportion coverage granted to them by the corporate mainstream media.
Analysis of the findings from around the net also underscores what we’ve long argued here at The BRAD BLOG: the Tea Baggers don’t actually give a damn about “the deficit” or even the Constitution. If they did, they wouldn’t have waited until after Republicans lost the elections in 2008 to start marching and decrying the deficit explosion (and supposed concerns about Constitutional rights) brought about under the previous Administration. They would have been out marching along with the real Tea Partiers, those who supported Ron Paul as long ago as 2007, and his concerns about unbridled deficit spending and the trampling of Constitutional rights during the eight years of the Bush Administration.
Here are some of the key findings from the new poll. In them, we learn what every MSMer should have endeavored to figure out and take into account long ago, before granting so much free exposure to the radical extremist fringe represented by these people…
- Black voters, low-income voters, and young voters together make up 32% of the electorate. (Tea Party sympathizers make up 29% of the electorate, and all other voters make 39% of the electorate.)
- Strong majorities of black voters (71%), young voters (59%), and low-income voters (60.5%) agree that government should work to provide for the needs of all citizens. [51%] of all voters agree with that sentiment. Only 20% of Tea Party sympathizers agree.
- Strong majorities of black voters (71%), young voters (71%), and low-income voters (67%) support spending money on infrastructure, as do 68% of all 2008 voters.
- Majorities of black voters (90%), young voters (84%), and low-income voters (71%) support increased spending on education, as do 65% of all voters, but only 40% of Tea Party sympathizers
- Majorities of black voters (74%), young voters (68%), and low-income voters (75%), as well as a majority of all voters (58%), support spending the same or more on income support programs such as Food Stamps for less well-off Americans. Nearly two-thirds of Tea Party sympathizers (62%) support spending less.
- Majorities of black voters, young income voters, and low-income voters, similar to a majority of all 2008 voters, support increasing taxes on investment income, increasing social security taxes on incomes greater than $107,000 and ending combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In all of the policy issues mentioned below, African-American, young American and low-income voters were far more in support of the particular policy than the rest of the general population of all voters. But even the general population of all voters vastly out-weighs Tea Party voters on these issues:
- Whereas 65% of all voters support spending more on public education … 41% of Tea Party sympathizers support more spending.
- Whereas a majority of all voters (58%) support spending the same or more on income support programs such as Food Stamps for less well-off Americans … Only 33% of Tea party sympathizers share that view.
- Whereas 30% of all 2008 voters strongly favor ending combat operations on Iraq and Afghanistan … Only 17% of Tea Party sympathizers strongly agree.
And, for all of their bitching and moaning about how terrible things are for them now (since that’s what they’ve been instructed to believe), the vast majority of self-described Tea Partier are still doing very well…
- 76% of Tea Party sympathizers reported their personal financial situation as fairly good or very good; 76% are married; 78% went to college; 84% are working or retired; and 92% are White.
- Less than 6% of Tea Party sympathizers reported having to worry about buying food for their families in the past year compared to 39% of low-income voters, 37% of black voters and 21% of young voters.
Majority Views Ignored…
In covering some of the coverage of their new survey, titled “What Happened to Hope And Change: A Poll of 2008 Voters,” Project Vote reports the following on its blog today, rounding up
…
“We’ve all spent so much time dwelling on the slights and accusations of the Fox News crowd, there’s been shockingly little attention paid to the views, frustrations and convictions of what we might call the forgotten electorate, otherwise known as Obama’s base,” [The Nation’s Chris Hayes] wrote.
…
Despite having personal finances that are far better than the national average, the majority of “pessimistic” Tea Partiers rate the economy as “very bad.” Yet black voters””who “are the most optimistic when it comes to the economy”””were most likely to report that there were times in the past year that they didn’t have enough money to buy food.
“While anti-spending rhetoric dominates the air waves…roughly one-third of voters from the last election support more government spending,” wrote Jay Heflin at On the Money, the Hill‘s finance and economy blog. “One issue facing the country is finding the revenue for entitlements. The poll found respondents were open to increasing taxes to keep these programs alive.”
“That is the tragic and perilous irony of this political moment: the people with the most faith in the president and the Democratic Party are the hardest hit by the continuing economic disaster; it’s this brute fact that’s driving the so-called enthusiasm gap between liberals and conservatives,” Hayes wrote. “More than frustration with the lack of a public option or anger at a White House that seems to relish insulting the ‘professional left,’ the flagging enthusiasm among Obama’s ’08 base is the product of a kind of cognitive dissonance between hope and reality.”
And reality may hit all the harder come November, some say, not because the majorities don’t believe in an equitable economy, but because they feel defeated and largely ignored.
“I am just about fed up with all the Tea Party triumphalism coming out of the primary elections,” wrote Eli at Firedoglake, an online news site. “But as the media often forgets, the GOP is not America, and a majority of Republican voters is not the same as a majority of all voters…And most amazing of all, when you compare their responses to the country as a whole, it turns out that [black, low-income, and youth voters are] a lot more mainstream and representative of America than the tea partiers are.”
“So yeah, it looks to me like most Americans are okay with the government doing more than just making the world safe for corporations and rich people.”
“These findings challenge the notion that [deficit] reduction is the number one priority of the Tea Party,” wrote assistant professor at George Washington University Elizabeth Rigby at the Huffington Post. “Instead, it seems that their support for spending cuts rests more on an opposition to redistributive, safety-net programs as personified in a sign held up at a Tea Party rally that cried out: ‘Redistribute my work ethic.’ Understanding these underlying views are likely to provide more insight into the Tea Party movement than focusing on the deficit trope the Tea Party continues to emphasize.”
In possibly related story, this SaveWisconsin’s Vote site says that they recorded audio of a Tea Party meeting instructing people on doing voter caging in Wisconsin. Just thought you might not have seen this. Sorry if it’s off topic.
Sounds like the corporate media is preparing to explain away rigged elections this November. The “enthusiasm gap”. Riiiight.
For what it’s worth, Love Of Truth UCC Guy, I touched on that briefly last week at the end of this piece: https://bradblog.com/?p=8082
The media ALWAYS preoares for rigged elections.
http://richardcharnin.com/2010E...castModels.htm
Registered and Likely Voter Projections
The House and Senate forecast models provide Registered Voter (RV) and Likely Voter (LV) projections. The assumption is that the election is held today. Pre-election polls all interview registered voters; likely voters are a sub-sample. They are not separate polls. Democrats always do better in the full RV sample than in the LV sub-sample (see the LVCM model below).
LV polls exclude millions of registered voters who actually vote – and most of them are Democrats. In addition, millions of votes are cast but never counted in every election – and most of them are Democratic as well. The good news is that proliferation of electronic voting has reduced the uncounted vote rate. The bad news is that votes can be switched, stuffed or dropped at the voting machine and/or the central tabulator where they are counted.
Since 2000, LV poll projections have closely matched recorded vote shares and final exit polls (which are forced to match the recorded vote). The RV poll projections closely matched the unadjusted and preliminary exit polls.
In the weeks prior to the election, the MSM phases out RV polls and replaces them with LV polls that lowball Democratic shares. In so doing, they lay the foundation for matching their final predictions to a fraudulent recorded vote-count.
Midterm Forecast
(Probability of GOP majority)
Senate Seats
(200 simulated election trials)
LV polls: Dem 50.5 – Repub 47.5 (5%)
RV polls: Dem 52.7 – Repub 45.3 (0%)
House Seats
LV polls: Dem 198 – Repub 237 (100%)
RV polls: Dem 207 – Repub 228 (91%)
The media/pollster drumbeat of a “horse race” is largely based on LV polls. The narrative conditions the public to expect a recorded vote which in fact understates the True Democratic share.
The pollsters discount the RV sample for a fraud component, fully expecting that the LV projections will be a close match to the recorded vote – but they never mention the F-word. They know that votes are miscounted in every election. And so their final LV-based polling forecasts are usually quite accurate.
Pollsters are paid to predict the recorded vote – not the True Vote.
The 2010 midterms are different from the last four elections in that a low Democratic voter turnout is expected. Election fraud will very likely cost the Democrats a few seats in the House and Senate. And the number will be close to the difference between the RV and LV samples. But there may not be RV samples for us to calculate the difference on Election Day. And once again, pollsters will be complemented on how closely their final LV predictions matched the (recorded) vote.
So, the fringe is outed as fringe. Since this is the Republican fringe, eating its own, it is seen as big news. Actually, it does seem fairly newsy that normally compliant Republican conformists are so mad at Obama that they are tossing out their own incumbents. It’s like a watching a feeding frenzy where the sharks are snapping at each other. I think the plan was to motivate the dips to oust the Democrats. So far, the plan is kind of backfiring. Let’s help it along. Everybody VOTE !
Jim DeMented isn’t going to allow any legislation to occur until his hand-picked Tea Party candidates win in their rigged elections, giving him the support he needs to become Senate Majority Leader.
I picked this up from a television show. So am not taking credit for it. But it realy thouch my heart. And it is not meant to just this piece on the blog, but placed here because it is the lasted piece and first to be seen here.
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a better way of living your life.
you do not just give up.
you do not just let things happen.
you make a stand
you say no
you have the guts to do what is right, when everybody else just runs away.
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