Part 8 (2/2)

4. Alan I. Abramowitz, ”Grand Old Tea Party: Partisan Polarization and the Rise of the Tea Party Movement,” paper prepared for delivery at the Conference on the Tea Party Movement, University of California, Berkeley, October 2010, p. 12.

5. Larry J. Sabato, ”Pendulum Swing,” in Pendulum Swing, edited by Larry J. Sabato (Boston: Longman, 2011), p. 40.

6. For indications of basic active support, see evidence from the April 2010 New York Times/CBS poll summarized in Kate Zernike and Megan Thee-Brenan, ”Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated,” New York Times, April 14, 2010; and evidence from a June 2010 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll discussed in Abramowitz, ”Grand Old Tea Party,” p. 12.

7. Our dataset, a tally of all local groups in all fifty states with any presence on the Internet, was last updated in the late summer of 2011.

8. The meetings we attended in the first half of 2011 fell in this range. In 2010, the Was.h.i.+ngton Post found that over half of Tea Parties had fewer than fifty partic.i.p.ants at their last meeting, by their own count. Amy Gardner, ”Gauging the scope of the tea party movement in America,” Was.h.i.+ngton Post, October 24, 2010.

9. The very active Jefferson Area Tea Party in Charlottesville, Virginia, has about 100 members on its list, about half of whom tend to show up at any given meeting, according to our observations and reports from the group leader.

10. In Chapter 3, we will have more to say about the more particular life-circ.u.mstances and skills of men and women who founded local groups and provide ongoing leaders.h.i.+p. In this chapter we stick to the characteristics broadly shared by Tea Party people.

11. CBS/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

12. The CBS/New York Times poll from April 512, 2010, found that three-quarters of Tea Party supporters are 45 or older. The Winston Group poll from April 1, 2010, found that 70% of Tea Party supporters are 45 or older.

13. NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, June 1721, 2010.

14. ”The Tea Party and Religion,” report from the Pew Research Center, February 23, 2011.

15. CBS/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

16. John Green, political scientist at the University of Akron, was interviewed by phone by Theda Skocpol on April 8, 2011. He reported seeing both minorities and younger people at the Akron meeting, adding up to about a dozen out of 70 people in attendance. Green also attended a meeting near Columbus where all Tea Partiers were older-the youngest 55, he estimated.

17. Noted on the Greater Phoenix website in May 2011.

18. This point is ably elaborated and doc.u.mented in Abramowitz, ”Grand Old Tea Party.”

19. Website accessed in March 2011.

20. For examples, see: Zachary Courser, ”The Tea Party at the Election,” The Forum, 8 (4), article 5; Sean J. Miller, ”Survey: Four in 10 Tea Party Members are Democrats or Independents,” The Hill, April 4, 2010; and Andrew Malcolm, ”Myth-Busting Polls: Tea Party Members are Average Americans, 41 Percent are Democrats, Independents,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 2010.

21. In addition to polls cited here, see Stanley B. Greenberg, James Carville, Jim Gerstein, Peyton M. Craighill, and Kate Monninger, ”Special Report on the Tea Party Movement,” Democracy Corps, July 19, 2010. Available at /strategy/2010/07/special-report-on-the-tea-party-movement/ as of May 21, 2011.

22. See, for example, the Quinnipiac Poll, March 1621, 2010 and Stanley B. Greenberg, James Carville, Jim Gerstein, Peyton M. Craighill, and Kate Monninger, ”Special Report on the Tea Party Movement.”

23. Frank Newport, ”Tea Party Supporters Overlap Republican Base,” Gallup Survey Report, July 2, 2010. Available at /poll/141098/tea-party-supporters-overlap-republican-base.aspx as of May 21, 2011.

24. NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, June 1721, 2010.

25. ”Tea Party's Hard Line on Spending Divides the GOP,” Pew Research Center Publications, February 11, 2011. Ekins, ”Character and Origins” also pulls together evidence from multiple surveys to doc.u.ment att.i.tudinal differences between Tea Partiers and nonTea Party Republicans. Similarly, 69% of ”active Republicans” rated Obama negatively in 2008, for example, but 91% of Tea Partiers rated him negatively in mid-2010. Abramowitz, ”Grand Old Tea Party,' Tables 2 and 3.

26. ”Most Want Budget Compromise but Split on Who's to Blame for a Shutdown,” Pew Research Center Publications, April 4, 2011.

27. The collapse of the construction industry is a major reason that white unemployment, for the first time in recorded data, was more than half that of blacks. Data from: Anna Turner, ”Jobs Crisis Fact Sheet,” Economic Policy Inst.i.tute, March 8, 2010.

28. Dannis Jacobe, ”Nearly Half of Small-Business Owners May Never Retire,” Gallup, October 1, 2010.

29. Peter Goodman, ”Fuel Prices s.h.i.+ft Math for Life in Far Suburbs,” New York Times, June 25, 2008. Conor Dougherty, ”In the Exurbs, the American Dream is Up for Rent,” Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2009.

30. Matt Nesvisky, ”The Career Effects of Graduating in a Recession,” National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2006.

31. ”Most Want Budget Compromise but Split on Who's to Blame for a Shutdown,” Pew Research Center Publications, April 4, 2011.

32. CBS/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

33. Emily McClintock Ekins, ”The Character and Origins of the Tea Party Movement,” unpublished working paper delivered at the Midwest Political Science a.s.sociation, Chicago, Illinois, April 2011, p. 17.

34. In interviews in 2010 and 2011, Tea Partiers did not explain the Great Recession as a market failure. It is the result, in their view, of too much government interference, not too little. One example frequently cited by interviewees is the Community Reinvestment Act, which they believe created an unstable boom in homeowners.h.i.+p among irresponsible people. We discuss Tea Party views of government in more detail in Chapter 2.

35. ”Tea Party sign threatens gun violence if health care pa.s.ses,” Think Progress, March 20, 2010, available at /newspapers?id=u4syAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZbcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4291,7598936 as of May 21, 2011. John Birch Society opposition to fluoridation has been widely reported, including on the December 23rd episode of the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. In their response to the Maddow program, the John Birch Society claimed that they had opposed fluoridation as ”a precedent for the socialized medicine” and ”part of the Soviet communist state.” See parison, the Tea Party is an active group. In 1994, only 14% of American adults reported having worked for a party or candidate in the past three or four years. Gallup/CCFR Survey of American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy 1995, October 725, 1994: ”Some people are quite active in politics, while others prefer not to take an active part. During the last three to four years have you done any of the things listed on this card? Just call off the number in front of any of the things you have done ... voted in the Presidential election, voted in a local or state election, worked for a political party or candidate, gone to a political meeting to hear a candidate speak, asked someone to vote for your party or candidate, worn a campaign b.u.t.ton or displayed a campaign poster, written or spoken to a public official about some personal need or problem, or written or spoken to a public official about some political issue or problem?” (Voted in Presidential election, 73 percent; Voted in local or state election, 68 percent; Worked for party or candidate, 14 percent; Gone to a political meeting, 22 percent; Asked someone to vote, 25 percent; Worn a campaign b.u.t.ton or displayed poster, 25 percent; Written or spoken to a public official about personal need or problem, 23 percent; Written or spoken to a public official about political issue or problem, 25 percent; None of these, 20 percent.) 51. David Riley, ”Holliston woman leads Boston Tea Party,” MetroWest Daily News, February 22, 2010.

52. Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). Robert D. Putnam, ”Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital.” Journal of Democracy 6(1) (1995), p. 6578.

53. Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (New York: Vintage, 1971).

54. Emily Ekins' breakdown of differences between social conservatives and libertarians in the Tea Party finds no gender difference. Both camps were tilted toward men in the surveys she a.n.a.lyzed. Emily Ekins, ”The Character and Origins of the Tea Party Movement.”

55. Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995).

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