http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics_research2011.html
 
TEA Party Voters Constitute
a Different Breed of Conservative
 
 
            Wiser Research and Rasmussen Reports recently published new polls with intriguing depictions of TEA Party voters and society’s perceptions of them . . . . Of course, literally hundreds of surveys about the TEA Party have been conducted. Dozens more comparing TEA (“Taxed Enough Already” or “Taken Enough Abuse”) Party folks to typical conservatives or to typical Americans, typical Republicans or to Independents have also been done in the last year. Some of the most common claims of the mainstream media about the TEA Party were absolutely and quickly refuted by the mainstream polling organizations . . . the following “generic” poll information comes from numerous surveys on the subject which will be followed by the two recent and more specific surveys about the TEA folk from Rasmussen Reports; and Wiser Research . . . we’ll look far more closely at the Rasmussen and Wiser data. Here are the conclusions about the make up of the TEA Party that can be drawn from mainstream research thus far:
1) TEA Pary members were not stupid as liberal pundits suggested, but more highly educated than the general populace and than other conservatives.  
2) They were not racists, but less likely to be hold racist views than the general populace. 
3) They were more likely to be older than 45. 
4) The other demographics of the TEA Party vary somewhat from region to region. However, in general they are older -- more than 150% as likely to be over 65 as under age 28. Men outnumbered women by about 56-44 among TEA Partiers. Blacks and Hispanics are represented among the TEA Party but around 50% less frequently than found in the general populace for both groups. Catholics are found among the TEA Party about 30% less frequently than in the general populace;  Jews are found about 60% less frequently than among the general populace. Asians are found at about 10% less often than in the general populace. TEA Party events are often family events for younger couples that are involved.
5) TEA Partiers are more likely to be successful and enjoy higher earnings. 
6) More likely to own a business or represent a profession such as doctor, architect, engineer, computer-programmer etc. than the general public.
7) The mainstream media were right about one thing:  TEA Partiers were far more likely to watch FOXNews regularly and far more likely to question the “fairness” of other popular media sources of information such as the traditional broadcast networks.
8) They come from all over the political spectrum but typically described themselves as Republicans 54% of the time; as Independents or “Other” 28%; as Democrats 12%; and as Libertarians 6%.
9)   Despite efforts to portray them as extremists, recent surveys show that 47% of the voters regard their own views as closer to the TEA Party then to those of our representatives or senators and 54% say the TEA Party views are closer to theirs than what they perceive to be the views of President Obama.
10)   TEA Party people are far more likely than other voters to call themselves “Fiscal-Conservatives”; “Constitutional-Conservatives”; or “Libertarians.”
11) TEA Party people are far more likely to describe themselves as “well-informed on the issues” than regular conservatives 58% to 41% and than the general public where only 30% agreed with that self-description.
12) While studies by groups like the Huffington post seem to aim at portraying TEA Partiers as “trailer trash” and “100% sold on” the Republican Party: TEA Partiers “perhaps because of their age” come from a higher than average income levels and largely describe themselves as previously “inactive” politically.
13) Perhaps because of their age, TEA Party members are more likely than members of the general public to have owned or managed a business or to have served in managerial positions than the general public.
14) TEA Partiers are more likely to regard themselves as “very well-informed politically” and “economically” than the general public. About 78% of them agree with the statement “Lower taxes creates jobs.”
15) The single-most consistent aspect of the TEA Party that everyone agrees upon is that they are overwhelmingly conservative. Studies have shown that only 6-10% of TEA Partiers consider themselves “liberal” and only 22-25% consider themselves to have “centrist” political views.   When the word “moderate” is used, however, a large amount of the TEA Party considers themselves to be fiscally-conservative moderates.
16) Under-represented professions among TEA Partiers include teachers and lawyers.  Union involvement is found, but less than among average voters.  Many are involved in the computer industry or information technology.
17) TEA Party people are far LESS likely to describe themselves as “Socially-Conservative” and more likely to call themselves “Social- Moderates” or even “Social-liberals” than regular conservatives. They are far less likely to think that total bans on abortion; absolute right to prayer in public schools; teaching creationism in public schools; or gun control are “major issues at this time” and far more likely to point to debt; jobs; runaway government spending; and expansion of government as the most serious issues of our day. While both types of conservatives are highly likely to oppose gay marriage, TEA Party conservatives are more likely to approve of or be neutral toward the gay lifestyle. These numbers and attitudes have been fairly consistent for the last year regardless of who’s doing the polling.
18) While we’ve seen no polling data on this, Rajjpuut has done a lot of “informal polling” and would describe the “level of violence” found at TEA Party demonstrations (perhaps in keeping with their age) as “virtually non-existent” especially compared with that of the left-wing activist and Union activist demonstrations he’s seen. Similarly examining the “rhetoric” found on signs at such demonstrations shows the TEA Party placards generally “staying on topic” and complaining about policies and events in comparison to left-wing activism (say in Wisconsin) as vitriolic and often aimed at personalities . . . which is diametrically opposed to the viewpoints expressed by mainstream pundits characterizing the two groups.  
The only “violence” ever seen by Rajjpuut at a TEA Party event was when someone tried to infiltrate a TEA Party group (with photographers in tow) bearing a racist reference to Obama. The young man was physically conducted off the premises by four athletic-looking young TEA Party men and his racist sign destroyed completely. The mainstream media didn’t cover that on the nightly news, however. That’s concludes our broad outline of who the TEA Party is . . . .
http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics_research2011.html
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/april_2011/48_say_their_views_closer_to_tea_party_than_congress
           In the two surveys linked above, the pollsters zeroed in on some specific beliefs or specific impact of TEA Party conservatives compared to regular conservatives. The second link is to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll on the TEA Party which tracks the public perception of TEA Partiers very closely. The top link from Wiser Research really aimed to zoom in on a few areas where the TEA Party is claimed by the media to be “more extreme” than Republicans or other conservatives.
            Rasmussen leads off his poll with this comment: “In the ongoing budget-cutting debate in Washington, some congressional Democrats have accused their Republican opponents of being ‘held captive’ by the Tea Party movement, but voters identified with the Tea Party more than Congress. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters say when it comes to the major issues facing the country, their views are closer to the average Tea Party member as opposed to the average member of Congress. Just 22% say their views are closer to those of the average congressman. Even more (30%) aren’t sure.”
            Results of the Rasmussen polling added that 49% of likely voters see the TEA Party movement as “good for the country; while 26% see it as bad for the country; and 16% see the TEA Party as a neutral entity neither good nor bad. 78% of Republicans and 54% of Independents see the TEA Party as good for the country; while 48% of Democrats see it as bad for the country. 45% of likely voters believe the average TEA Party member has a better understanding of the problems (and their solutions?) facing the country than the average member of congress; while only 31% see the average member of congress having a better understanding.
            At present 22% of the populace claim they are part of the TEA Party movement; 12% say that someone close to them is a TEA Party Member; and 14% say they aren’t sure. 94% of the political-class have no ties to the TEA Party and 69% of the political class believe the TEA Party is a bad thing. (Over the years depending upon the economy, between 6-15% of voters identify themselves as part of the political class by their answers to three specific questions from Rasmussen pollers, while 54-70% respond to those same three questions in keeping with “mainstream” views. 59% of mainstream voters see the TEA Party as good for the country. 
The Rasmussen Reports poll concludes saying, “41% of all voters think the Tea Party will play a bigger role in the 2012 election campaigns than it did in 2010; 30% see the TEA Party’s role “about the same”; while 21% say they expect a smaller role in 2012. Voters see the words “Tea Party” a bit more positively as a political label these days, while the terms “liberal” and “progressive” have lost ground even among Democrats. “Conservative” remains the most popular description. While Rasmussen has earned a reputation for professionalism and accuracy and beaten all other polling groups in predicting the final vote percentages over the last three presidential election cycles . . . some have claimed that Rasmussen is “conservative-leaning.” For balance we’ll look at a recent poll on the TEA Party conducted by a supposedly independent and neutral survey group: Wiser Research . . . .
            In the Wiser Research the survey concluded that it appears that there is “an emerging split among conservatives” and asked “how will this affect Republicans in 2012?”   While admiring the polling’s ingenuity, Rajjpuut finds such conclusions, highly questionable largely because of the way the polling was conducted.   Wiser sought responses to opinion statements from regular conservatives and from TEA Party conservatives and then sought to assess the differences in response. Since Wiser was looking for differences, it’s not at all surprising that they found them. Rajjpuut’s totally different conclusions are found below; here are the Wiser opinion-generating statements:
A)        “Barack Obama is destroying the country.”
B)       “Obama is a socialist.”
C)        “I want to see Obama’s policies fail.”
D)        “Obama is a practicing Christian/Muslim.”
E)       “Obama does not have a U.S. birth certificate.”
As stated above, Wiser Research was looking for differences and found them. Except for the first three questions, however, they got a lot of “not sure” responses. Across the board the TEA Party members were more likely to agree with the statements and to believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim than regular conservatives were. First let’s look at those responses according to Wiser:
A)       “Barack Obama is destroying the country” elicited a huge difference between regular conservatives and the TEA Party. 6% of regular conservatives agreed with the statement while 71% of TEA Party Conservatives agreed.
B)       “Obama is a Socialist” showed another great divide, but not quite so marked this time: 75% of the TEA Party members believe Obama is a Socialist compared to 40% of regular conservatives.
C)        “I want to see Obama’s policies fail” was agreed to by 76% of TEA Partiers, but only by 32% of non-TEA Party conservatives.
D)       “Obama is a practicing Muslim” was agreed to by 27% of the TEA Party and 16% of other conservatives; and the corollary “Obama is a practicing Christian” was agreed to again by 27% of TEA Partiers; but 46% of other conservatives. Note: Among all voters various studies have shown that Obama is considered a Muslim by roughly 16% of the populace.
 
E)       “Obama does not have a U.S. birth certificate” garnered 26% agreement from the TEA Party but only 17% from other conservatives. Note: study after study have shown that 18-20% of all American voters believe the president cannot produce a legitimate American birth certificate and that independents are far more likely than Democrats and only slightly less likely than Republicans to believe this is true.
The “self-fulfilling prophecy” aspect of human affairs (and human polling) has been documented for at least the last eighty years  -- we tend to find what we expect to find and the truth be damned.  Rajjpuut sees these Wiser numbers, especially in response to the first statement, to be far, far out of line with reality as he or anyone he knows has experienced it. He’d daresay that it would be impossible to find any group of self-described conservatives anywhere who’d respond to the statement “Barack Obama is destroying the country” with less than 30% agreement. If the statement was rephrased, “The policies of Barack Obama are destroying the country,” than it’s doubtful that less than 60% agreement could be found among any group of self-described conservatives in America. What exactly is this “opinion” of Rajjpuut based upon? 
A)   Despite attempts to portray America as a racist nation, Barack Obama got more White votes than John Kerry or Al Gore. Almost 48% of White voters supported him. In contrast less than 5% of Black vote backed McCain . . . racism, seems to come from the other direction or should we call it Black backlash?
B)    Barack Obama got a huge benefit of the doubt after his election in 2008. 72% of Americans approved of his performance when polled on Inauguration Day including 45% who highly approved (in contrast only 15% of Americans highly disapproved of Obama’s performance at that time). Rajjpuut backed “the lesser of two evils” McCain-Palin ticket; but admits feeling good about the country electing a Black man as its president.  Unfortunately, that feeling was gone within six weeks . . . .
C)   Things have changed for Mr. Obama, his level of support has fallen dramatically. Mr. Obama didn’t somehow get “blacker” or otherwise racially objectional overnight; nor did White voters suddenly become more racist. Mr. Obama’s policies quite frankly and simply are hurting the country and the voters have noticed and become angry or at least disappointed about that.
As everyone knows, the honeymoon was over rather quickly.   Almost immediately Obama’s actions made it clear that the man practiced highly dubious politics, especially his economic actions and policies. By mid-March of 2009, the TEA Party had arisen out of nowhere in objection to government policies these individuals regarded as anti-American; socialistic; anti-common sense; anti-Constitutional and expansive. That Barack Obama was at the center of these policies was obvious to all . . . so once the political opposition arose, it’s natural that he, personally, would be the center of the debate. 
Again, if the statement “Barack Obama’s policies are destroying this country” had been used, it’s likely that very little rift would have been shown between conservatives. The TEA Party arose first against Mr. Obama’s policies while the entire nation didn’t think about repudiating them until a couple months before the last election. With eighteen extra months to crystallize their understanding, it’s natural that the TEA Party would be slightly more likely to see Obama as personally responsible.  Rajjpuut would prefer not to impugn the motives of Wiser Research, but clearly sloppy interview technique and dubious methodology seem to be involved.
            The task that Wiser Research took upon itself: to find major differences between TEA Party conservatives compared to all conservatives seems to have shown success. However, since in study after study . . . conservatives of all ilks regard protecting the Constitution and American Way of Life; growing the economy; stopping the growth in government; creating a balanced budget; dealing with the National Debt and unfunded liabilities; and ethics in government as the most important issues of our day -- and TEA Party conservatives have consistently shown themselves the most adamant in desiring the government to face up to these issues . . . .
The Wiser Research study’s final conclusions that a rift is developing between Republicans (notice their research was on self-identified “conservatives,” but their conclusion talks about Republicans) and the TEA Party may be of little import since currently fiscal-conservativism and Constitutional-conservativism seems to be the driving impetus of the broader electorate. IF such a wide rift actually exists it’s not likely to manifest itself when such a huge area of “easy” agreement lies before the two groups and the general voting public as well. Additionally, the central fallacy of the Wiser Research conclusion emerges from their polling technique in which clearly Barack Obama (and not his policies specifically; or progressive political policies in general) was the focal point. So long as the man’s policies are seen as antithetical to conservative values, no rift matters.
The one key finding of the Wiser study (that the TEA Party believes more strongly that “Obama is destroying the country” by a ratio of 71% to 6% over ordinary conservatives) puts their whole study in question in Rajjpuut’s mind until it can be replicated by a more respected polling organization. When it is further revealed that Wiser comes to this conclusion and another conclusion (from a different study) that the TEA Party harbors more racial resentment than other conservatives – something none of the other more accredited studies has ever shown . . . one cannot be blamed for suggesting that it looks likes Wiser went out of its way 1) to back the Obama administration’s “party line” about the largely “unsavory” nature of the TEA Party and 2) actually attempted to incite a rift amongs conservative voters which could only benefit Barack Obama. Rajjpuut would suggest that Rasmussen and other more respected polling outfits take up this Wiser study and conduct a similar one of their own. The numbers 71% and 6%, however, are so out of line with real life that, as mentioned, the whole Wiser study is made suspect.
 
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
 
 
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