{"id":9850,"date":"2010-04-05T09:38:15","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T14:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=9850"},"modified":"2010-04-05T09:38:15","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T14:38:15","slug":"another-cycle-another-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=9850","title":{"rendered":"Another Cycle, Another Trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, as the ’08 campaign was heating up, up, you started seeing the stories, asking “are evangelicals leaving the GOP<\/a>?\u00a0 The story was like so many – an idea looking for a trend – that fairly screamed “someone’s trolling to get ahead of a curve that doesn’t exist yet”.\u00a0 (The answer, by the way, was “no – evangelicals just stay home if they’re not thrilled with their choices.<\/p>\n

So I’m not sure what to think of this story,<\/a>\u00a0a CNN poll showing Democrats joining the Tea Parties:<\/p>\n

They are not typical Tea Party activists: A woman who voted for President Obama and believes he’s a “phenomenal speaker.” Another who said she was a “knee-jerk, bleeding heart liberal.”<\/p>\n

These two women are not alone.<\/p>\n

Some Americans who say they have been sympathetic to Democratic causes in the past — some even voted for Democratic candidates — are angry with President Obama and his party. They say they are now supporting the Tea Party — a movement that champions less government, lower taxes and the defeat of Democrats even though it’s not formally aligned with the Republican Party.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I spoke at the Constitution Day Tea Party last year, and I took a very informal poll of my own; I asked people to give a shout and wave their arms when I mentioned their label of choice.\u00a0 There was a small film of people who responded to “Democrat”.<\/p>\n

The CNN poll, wonder of wonders, found…more or less the same thing:<\/p>\n

To be sure, the number of Democrats in the Tea Party movement is small. A recent CNN\/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows that while 96 percent of Tea Party activists identify themselves as either Republican or Independent, only 4 percent say they are Democrats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, you can see where some Democrats – especially the blue-collar ones that stand to be damaged the most by Obama’s plans – might find some resonance; their parents did the same thirty years ago when Jimmy Carter presented them with the same dismal future.<\/p>\n

Some of these disgruntled voters are taking part in the current Tea Party Express tour. The tour began in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, on March 28 and is making 44 stops across the nation. It ends in Washington on tax day — April 15.+<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which is where I’ll be – at the State Capitol for the Minnesota Tea Party, after work on April 15!<\/p>\n

See you there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, as the ’08 campaign was heating up, up, you started seeing the stories, asking “are evangelicals leaving the GOP?\u00a0 The story was like so many – an idea looking for a trend – that fairly screamed “someone’s trolling to get ahead of a curve that doesn’t exist yet”.\u00a0 (The answer, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,16,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-10","category-conservatism","category-democrats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9850"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9855,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9850\/revisions\/9855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}