Tea partiers haven’t seen a warm reception in the media — everyone from respected numbers wonk Nate Silver to, well, David Shuster regularly associates them with a fetishistic sexual practice, and the blogosphere was abuzz when reports surfaced that one protester out of thousands seemed to spit on a black congressman making his way through the Capitol.
The incident, along with other reports of slurs used at recent rallies, raised a troubling question, at least for talk show hosts and bloggers like Matt Yglesias: Are these “teabaggers” really motivated by racism, and are they just using taxes and health-care to obscure the real reasons for their anger? Survey doesn’t just say no — it also indicates most of the Tea Party’s motivated by the same things everyone else is:
Tea Party activists may be ardent supporters of economic conservatism but are similar to the overall electorate when it comes to economic priorities, according to the findings of a new report released by The Winston Group today on the political movement.
In one of the most extensive looks to date at just who Tea Party activists are, how they think, and the ideas that matter to them, the report found that 17% of the people polled considered themselves “part of the Tea Party movement” and more than four in ten Tea Party members said they were either Independents or Democrats.
In the February 2010 New Models study, 36% of Tea Party members name the economy and jobs as their top issue with national deficit and spending close behind at 21% — over twice as high as the overall electorate. However, when given the choice in the January survey, Tea Party members favored “reducing unemployment to 5%” over balancing the budget 63-32%, which closely reflects the overall electorate (64-32%)
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