Tea Partiers Whiter, Wealthier, More Male
A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll out today aims to identify what kinds of people comprise the nascent Tea Party movement currently shaking up American politics and tilting the electoral landscape back to the GOP.
The poll didn't explain the origins or philosophies of the Tea Party movement to respondents, but of the 1,023 people Opinion Research Corp. interviewed, 124 said they had donated money, attended an event, or otherwise actively supported the movement. Thanks to the small sample size, data on Tea Partiers carries a high margin of error of +/- 8.8%.
But some elements of the data are instructive: Tea Partiers tend to skew male, whiter, wealthier and better educated than the general public.
While all poll respondents were divided virtually evenly by gender, 60% of those involved with the Tea Party were male. Whites made up 80% of Tea Partiers but 71% of all respondents.
And the group is better off than average Americans. 66% percent of Tea Partiers said they make more than $50K a year, whereas just 42% of all respondents make that much. Fully 40% were college grads, higher than the 28% of all respondents who have college degrees.
With respect to party ID, more than half of the Tea Partiers polled IDed themselves as indies, with 44% describing themselves as GOPers and 4% as Dems. But while the GOP is making overtures to the Tea Party movement -- RNC Chair Michael Steele met with Tea Party leaders yesterday on Capitol Hill -- these activists are strongly in the GOP camp for now.
Fully 87% of Tea Partiers said they would support the GOP candidate on a generic '10 congressional ballot, while only 5% are supporting the Dem candidate. The generic ballot among all poll respondents was tied, 46-46%.
The poll was conducted Feb. 12-15. The margin of error for the full sample of adults was +/- 3.1%.
That's hardly surprising that the very people who will be made to pay for the rapidly expanding government programs are the ones protesting the insane fiscal irresponsibility of the current (and prior) admininistration. And the ones who get the handouts (again, surprisingly) support it. The key stat is that the Tea Party folks are more highly educated. So who do you suppose has the more reasoned and defensible position? The ones yelling 'give me, give me, GIVE ME MORE!' or those that wonder why they need to spend within their means when so many others, and most especially our elected representatives, do not.
Wait, you mean the rapidly expanding military budget? I'll bet the Tea Party folks aren't against that. I'm not sure what kind of education the Tea Party folks have (obviously they weren't graded on spelling, given the signs you see displayed at their rallies), but it certainly hasn't involved critical thinking. The Tea Party folks want to have their cake with their tea and eat it too - they haven't indicated they have a problem with cutting taxes for the rich and increasing military spending at the same time. It was bad policy for everyone except defense contractors and the rich in the Reagan years and nothing was different in the Bush years. I don't think the Tea Party folks have a more reasoned and defensible position - just a more selfish one.
A typical liberal response in the second paragraph by "Not Me" is to besmirch those who they disagree with - calling the Tea Partiers "dumb" because of mispelled a few signs at a rally and concluding they are all war mongers purely based on conjecture. This is typical liberal tactic of name calling (calling the tea-partiers dumb, white, selfish war mongers). Liberals do this because they are unable to debate the issues on merit.
In case you have not noticed, the taxpayers are out of cash. Obama's economic philosophy is socialistic and does not work. Case in point, he was quoted as saying, "when you spread the wealth around, its good for everybody." Excuse me, but what an individual earns for their work is their own personal wealth, not the federal government's to spend or take or spread around as they see fit.
This is quite simply madness. Although nobody wants to state the obvious for fear of political correctness, the federal government must begin to phase out social security and medicare. Let people keep their own property (in the form of wages) and invest on their own in the free market to start businesses, invent things, and to make their own medical and retirement plans. FDR's entitlement programs were unconstitutional from day one. Do a little research and see how he got this past the Supreme Court.
A last comment on the article; I would hardly classify someone as "wealthy" who makes $50k a year these days. The writer clearly wants to make the reader dislike the Tea Partiers because they are the "rich, "white(racists)".