Teabaggers less popular than atheists and Muslims

[polsongrizz]

Really, tell me something I didn't know...

Survey’s surprising finding: tea party less popular than atheists and Muslims
By Rachel Rose Hartman | The Ticket – 5 hrs ago



In an op-ed article in the New York Times, Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, and David E. Campbell, a political scientist at Notre Dame, say they have collected data indicating that the tea party is "less popular than much maligned groups like 'atheists' and 'Muslims.'"

But Campbell says the tea party was really an afterthought in their research.

"We didn't go into this study to look at the tea party," Campbell said in an interview with The Ticket.

The professors were following up on research they conducted in 2006 and 2007 for their book "American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us" and decided to add the tea party and atheists to their list of survey queries. By going back to many of the same respondents, the professors gleaned several interesting facts about the tea party.

One of their more surprising findings, Campbell concedes, (and one drawing national attention) is that the tea party drew a lower approval rating than Muslims and atheists. That put the tea party below 23 other entries--including Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Republicans and Democrats--that the professors included on their survey of "a representative sample of 3,000 Americans."

By examining which respondents became supporters of the tea party, Campbell and Putnam's survey "casts doubt on the tea party's 'origin story,' " they write in the Times.

Early tea partiers were described as "nonpartisan political neophytes," Campbell and Putnam write, but their findings showed that tea partiers were "highly partisan Republicans" who were more likely than others to have contacted government officials.

"They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do," they went on.

In addition to being socially conservative, the study found a close tie between religion and the tea party, whose supporters seek out "deeply religious" elected officials.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/surv ... 20531.html

[bulldog10jw]

Why an OP-ED. Shouldn't this be on the front page as news?

[Cap'n Cat]

The RepubliConks are as fractured as any political party has been in the last 200 years. Couldn't-a happened to a better bunch of assholes.

[CID1990]

Hmm. This survey seem odd considering that the Tea Party kicked the Dem majority out of the House.

I guess they are popular where it counts.

(BTW- if so few people approve of the Tea Party, then why bother putting this out there? It's like to doing a survey on whether people consider sh!t to be smelly, then reporting on it.)

[citdog]

The RepubliConks are as fractured as any political party has been in the last 200 years. Couldn't-a happened to a better bunch of assholes.

Cap'n you don't think the donks were more divided when 'Ol Strom got more electoral votes than mondale and dukakis times three?

Or in Charleston at the 1860 convention?


Fucking donks

[kalm]

Hmm. This survey seem odd considering that the Tea Party kicked the Dem majority out of the House.

I guess they are popular where it counts.

(BTW- if so few people approve of the Tea Party, then why bother putting this out there? It's like to doing a survey on whether people consider sh!t to be smelly, then reporting on it.)

The Tea Party motivated the Republican base which made the Republican Party the most popular in a two party system.

Tea Party would be far more impressive if it wasn't the Republican Party.

[Wedgebuster]

They are the village idiots, the kind that like to write "letters to the editor."

Nobody likes the teabaggers except the teabaggers. I've been told it takes two to tango.

[Cap'n Cat]

They are the village idiots, the kind that like to write "letters to the editor."

Nobody likes the teabaggers except the teabaggers. I've been told it takes two to tango.

No sh*t.

[YoUDeeMan]

They are the village idiots, the kind that like to write "letters to the editor."

Speaking of two village idiots, an Op-Ed column is just a glorified "letter to the editor".

[Skjellyfetti]

But, it is glorified.

[danefan]

Prime example?

http://www.deadline.com/2011/08/christi ... interview/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[eagleskins]

Very popular in white supremacist circles, though.

[CID1990]

NOW I see where all the pent-up "Bush Derangement Syndrome" folks went.