The Teabaggers Are Who You Think They Are

During the long debate over health care reform, the "elite"media kept saying that the program wasn't popular with the American people when nothing could be further from the truth. A large chunk of those who told pollsters that they were against the just passed health care reform bill were like me. They were against it because it didn't go far enough by including a single payer or public option. With the teabaggers, the same thing has happened again. The pea brains in the media just can't wrap their little minds around the fact that these people are crazy, are far right Republicans and are not representative of the coveted but very misguided independents.

Myth Number Two from comments: The Tea Party folks are Independent voters and over half of them are women. They voted the Republicans out of power based on the spending and wars issues.

There is a brand new poll out from The New York Times and CBS News and guess what, the teabaggers are exactly who we thought they were: FAR RIGHT REPUBLICANS.

Americans who call themselves "Tea Party members" in this poll:

• Mostly consider themselves Republicans – not independents - and most view the Republican Party favorably (62 percent).

• Are overwhelmingly negative about President Obama personally (80 percent); Americans overall are more favorable.

• Are more likely to think President Obama is working mainly on behalf of the poor, and not the middle class.

• Express nearly three times more anger toward Washington (45 percent) than Americans overall (17 percent).

• Are more likely to believe President Obama has already raised taxes, while most Americans do not.

In addition, the poll found the following...

Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party members are mostly from the South (37 percent) or the West (29 percent), and are older (59 percent say they are over age 45, compared to 50 percent of Americans.)

Tea Party identifiers are overwhelmingly white – 95 percent are white, compared to 77 percent of Americans.

Among those who've heard of the Tea Party movement, only a third thinks it reflects the views of most Americans while 42 percent say it does not.

Overall, 18 percent of Americans considers themselves a "member" of the Tea Party. (This is a self-identification not related to whether they have attended any rallies or events.) Tea Party ranks are dominated by Republicans: one-third of all the Republicans in this poll identify themselves as Tea Party members, as do one in five independents.

Ed Kilgore digs deeper into the poll and what he finds puts to rest any notion of this being a movement that hates both parties equally...

For all the talk of tea partiers being equally hostile to both major parties, 62% of them have a favorable view of the GOP, while only 9% have a favorable view of the Democratic Party. 80% have an unfavorable opinion of President Obama.

Are tea party enthusiasts anti-corporate "populists" who could theoretically be attracted to a more left-bent, populist Democratic Party? Doesn't look like it, since tea partiers are much more likely than Americans as a whole to oppose increased bank regulations, and nearly twice as likely to think Obama is prejudiced in favor of poor folks (not a compliment, given their general hostility to him). They are also much, much less likely to attribute the federal budget deficits they hate so much to the Bush administration. Nearly half of them erroneously believe the Obama administration has already raised taxes (again, not a good thing in their eyes).

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Just to make sure there isn't any confusion here about who these jackasses are, Tea Party darling and former Half Governor of Alaska, why speaking at a rally for John McCain today, said that "Everyone here today supporting John McCain, we are all part of that Tea Party movement." Got that? The woman who gets the teabaggers blood flowing says that all Republicans supporting John McCain are teabaggers.

Next up: They myth that they aren't violent.