According to Gallup, nearly “half of Americans, 47%, now have an unfavorable image of the Tea Party movement, the highest since it emerged on the national scene.”  That contrasts with 33% who have a favorable view.  This represents an increase of 5% in the grassroots movement’s unfavorable rating and a decrease of 6 points in its favorables, a pretty significant shift that.

At the same time, as Americans’ negative views of the movement are on the upswing, they continue to embrace its underlying ideal:

The large majority of Americans say spending too much money on unneeded or wasteful federal programs is to blame for the federal budget deficit, while 22% say the deficit is a consequence of not raising enough in taxes to pay for needed programs.

This movement gained momentum two years ago, largely because of the vast increases in federal spending passed by the then-Democratic Congress and signed by President Obama.  In line with Tea Party protestors, “Americans generally favor spending cuts rather than tax increases as the way for Congress to reduce the deficit going forward”:

Given a choice, Americans of all political persuasions are more likely to say that too much wasteful and unneeded government spending is the cause of the federal budget deficit, rather than too little tax revenue. Americans of all political persuasions also say cutting back on federal spending should be a major focus of efforts to reduce the deficit going forward.

Via Washington Examiner.  Do hope the president is looking at this poll.  And that Republican leaders don’t lose sight of it.

On Tuesday, a left-wing blog reported something that our readers have been noticing now for at least since the dawn of the Tea Party movement two years ago, that those joining these grassroots protests against excessive government spending are, by and large, not concerned with gay issues:

During a recent trip to Concord, New Hampshire, to cover a Tax Day Tea Party sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, I [Igor Volsky] asked attendees how the state’s 2009 same-sex marriage law has affected the state or their private lives. New Hampshire Republicans have promised to repeal the law next year and conservatives in the state have promised to turn the marriage issue into a litmus test for potential 2012 presidential contenders.

But at Friday’s event, not a single Tea Party activist told me that expanding marriage to gays and lesbians has undermined their relationships or in any way changed the state. In fact, everyone I spoke to insisted that changing the marriage law was not a priority

A number of the participants said that gay marriage just wasn’t a “priority” for them.  They’re more concerned with “bigger problems.”  Nice to see a left-wing blog helping debunk the (false) narrative of Tea Parties being a socially conservative movement where gays are unwelcome.

(H/t Memeorandum.)

If you watch nothing else on the Interwebs today, make it THIS!

Great work from Caleb Howe and Benjamin Howe!!!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Conservative blogs yesterday were all over a story the Daily Caller broke early in the day about a video apparently capturing “National Public Radio [NPR] senior executive, Ron Schiller . . . on camera savaging conservatives and the Tea Party movement”:

“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move,” declared Schiller, who runs NPR’s foundation.

That a senior executive for a news organization could say such a thing helps prove the conservative point about media biased against us.  Anyone who thinks that the Tea Party is not just involved, but “fanatically” involved in “people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian” hasn’t been paying much attention to the actual issues motivating so many people to participate in their protests.

It seems Schiller has a standard template for all conservative movements, that these folks want to run people’s lives, a template he likely derives not from actual reporting on actual Tea Parties, but from a prejudiced view of the right.

It’s one thing for such a man to be part of a supposedly non-partisan news organization.  It’s quite another when that organization takes federal money.  With federal budget deficits of over one trillion dollars, the solution is simple:  the federal government should defund NPR and let it fend for itself in the marketplace.

As does FoxNews.

UPDATE:  Commenting on this case, Michael Barone reaches a similar conclusion:

. . . with a new large Republican majority in the House of Representatives, NPR leaders could hardly have done a better job of persuading Congress to zero out public radio funding. (more…)

Glenn reminds us that “TODAY IS BEING CALLED THE TWO-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE TEA PARTY.”  And indeed, when I went back to check our archives, realized that it was two years ago today that I first attended a Tea Party and blogged about it —  here and here.

May this anniversary remind us that while we’ve come a long way in two years, we still have a tough rough ahead of us.  We may have helped moved popular opinion (or some might see it as helped disgruntled citizens organize and articulate their long-simmering grievances), but we still need to do the hard work of dismantling the unnecessary parts of the federal leviathan, many put into place since the first Tea Party protest.

Still, if our progress in the next two years continues as it has in the past,  when, two years hence, we celebrate the fourth anniversary of these grassroots protests for freedom, former President Obama will be wondering at how quickly a Republican Congress working in tandem with his successor worked to dismantle the bureaucracies he created while helping fulfilling his 2008 promise of a “net spending cut“.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!!

If our elected leaders were responsible guardians of the public treasury, those officials proposing budget cuts more drastic than some dubbed “draconian” would be seen not skinflints, but as skinflints.  These cuts barely scratch the surface of our fiscal problems.  With deficits like those we’ve been running, a $100 billion-dollar cut is little more than a rounding error.

That said, I’m pleased the Tea Party has scored a major victory in pushing House Republicans to cut at least that amount  ”in spending this fiscal year“, but that still leaves us with a deficit larger than any in the Bush years (when that good man’s detractors, including your humble bloggers, were faulting congressional Republicans for their big-spending ways).

(Hill article via Instapundit.)

Indeed, the deficit this year will be at least twice that of any comparable period when we had a Republican president and Congress.  To be sure, these cuts represent a step in the right direction, but given the size of the deficit, they amount to little more than a few drops in a very, big bucket.

*and then some.

2010, Bob Cusack reports at the Hill, “was the year of the Tea Party“:

. . . the Tea Party was in many ways a net asset for the GOP as Republicans grabbed control of the House and cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate. 

However, there was collateral damage as Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and other Senate GOP hopefuls seen as the party’s best chance of winning general-election races were ousted in primaries. Some blamed Tea Party candidates for costing Republicans a Senate majority to go with their new majority in the House.

Now, the question will be whether 2011 becomes the year where the Republican House, consistent with Tea Party principles, rejects big-government programs and passes legislation repealing the statist initiatives passed in the 111th Congress while scaling back those federal programs which helped create the financial mess of 2008 and the ongoing economic downturn.

Let us hope that the powers that be in Washington, including some who held significant sway over Republicans like Castle, do not hold the influence they once did over elected Republicans.  And that instead Tea Party principles, nearly identical to those of a great man whose centennial we celebrate this year, guide those election officials.

2010 was indeed the year when the Tea Party helped transform the electoral landscape.  Maybe 2011 be the year when it transforms the legislative landscape. (more…)

From a letter to the editor in the Washington Post, “The Tea Party’s brew includes gays and lesbians“:

Mr. Meyerson assumes that gay Americans are politically myopic. National exit polls for the November election showed that 31 percent of voters who identified themselves as gay voted for Republican candidates in House races.

Liberals would like to believe they own the gay vote, as if gays were a monolithic voting bloc whose sole, overriding concern is gay marriage and the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Gays are heads of families, professionals and business owners, and issues such as national security, sane economic policy and halting the rapid growth and overreach of government rank far ahead of gay issues for many, though the importance of gay issues can’t be discounted.

The Tea Party movement has three core principles: Fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets. While individual Tea Partyers may embrace a wide range of views on social issues, the movement has risen to power because it has formed around this very narrow range of principles most critical to the survival of our nation at this precise moment in history.

The letter’s author Doug Mainwaring may not be a GayPatriot reader, but he sure does sound like one!  :-)

Sees more and more of us freedom-loving gay folk are speaking out!

(H/t:  Instapundit.)

So, CNN is running a column by Tea Party critic and Palin agonist David Frum on how to commemorate the centennial of the greatest domestic policy president of the twentieth century. Despite Frum’s chirping against a grassroots protest movement with a political philosophy nearly identical to the Gipper’s and a candidate who has his gift for communication (and enervating the left) while lacking his extensive reading and government experience, he does have a great suggestion: build a “museum in Washington dedicated to the victims of communism.”

That would be a great tribute to the Gipper as it would highlight both his strong opposition to communism and his long-term love of liberty.

In response to Frum’s post, Sissy Willis tweets that the Tea Party is the “appropriate national commemoration of this good man and great president”.

Today, we learned that the Tea Party doesn’t need to elect its candidates to advance its agenda.  When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in the words of Politico’s Manu Raju, “stunned official Washington on Monday by saying he would support a two-year ban on the pet projects“, it was the statement heard round the blogosphere, resounding across the Beltway.  This shrewd politician could read the tea leaves.

This former champion of earmarks was deft in explaining his change of heart (some have called it a flip-flop or “about-face“).  He claims to “know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state” and refuses to apologize for them:

But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight. And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government.

That’s why today I am announcing that I will join the Republican Leadership in the House in support of a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th Congress.

“Behind this principled sounding explanation,” Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff writes

. . . lie solid pragmatic considerations. For one thing, McConnell presumably does not wish to face, or see members of caucus face, strong Tea Party opposition in primaries over the next few cycles.

More fundamentally, McConnell presumably does not want a schism develop between the leadership and the Tea Party faction of his caucus over an issue that is mostly symbolic. Indeed, if McConnell can navigate his way through this issue, there may be no schism.

Read the whole thing.  What is significant is that McConnell recognizes that what political benefit might once have come from earmarks has long since evaporated with the growing public concern about spendthrift politicians in our nation’s capital.  A small government consensus continues to emerge.

The Tea Party has helped make it good politics to oppose the pork-barrel politicians which incumbents once thought essential to survival.

From Glenn Reynolds: Liberal Columnist Urges “Violence” And “Revolution.”

NB:  Tweaked the title.

You gotta give major props to GOProud for promoting the stat that 31% of gay people voted Republican in the 2010 mid-terms.  It seems I can’t open my e-mail box — or check my Facebook without finding a link to some article or post on this supposedly amazing statistic — amazing only to those who assume that there is some genetic link between same-sex attraction and Democratic politics.  Those of us “out” gay Republicans have long been aware that many of our fellows part company from the big-government ideas of the president’s political party.

Many of our fellows are just afraid to talk about it because we fear the recrimination we experience from our politicized peers (when we do come out conservative).

There are a lot of gay people who support small government and find that the ideas of the Tea Party movement resonate.  Indeed, many of us, including yours truly, are delighted by the rapid growth of this grassroots movement.  It has helped return the focus of the Republican Party to the issues which, we believe, should be its focus.

And we finally have a gay conservative organization able to articulate that:

Economics is at the “forefront” of everyone’s mind, said Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, a conservative gay advocacy group. . . .

“I think you saw this week and this year a campaign that was run on issues of importance to the vast majority of Americans, including gay Americans and the message of the Tea Party resonates with everyone.”

NB:  Tweaked this post to correct some errors.

Stay tuned for a special announcement at 3:30PM Eastern. 

I’ll be broadcasting live (er.. recorded live…) for the first time from GayPatriot Broadcast HQ in Charlotte, NC.

LIVE ELECTION NIGHT COVERAGE FROM FREEDOMWORKS
Anchored by Tabitha Hale, Melissa Clothier and Bruce Carroll

UPDATE:  Dang it, I forgot to mention the most important thing!  If any of you are planning to be at a campaign HQ on Tuesday night, please email me and let me know and we can try to get you on the show as a contributor (iPhone & Skype would help!).

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

At a Democratic rally at the University of Southern California for the president of the United States, one of the leading Democrats in the state used a sexual slur to malign members of the most dynamic, grassroots political movement in the country:

[Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa] relinquished the stage to his cousin, Assembly Speaker John Perez. Perez is running unopposed in his district, so he doesn’t need an Obama bump. But there he was anyway, sending his own personal “message to the teabaggers” that not only do Democrats understand the Constitution, but they’ve also read it. Zing! Who are you again?

Emphasis added.  How would this openly gay Democrat feel if social conservatives at a rally for a prominent Republican referred to gay “equality” advocates as “sodomites”?   They would rightfully be offended and would condemn both the mean-spirited speaker — and the prominent Republican.

As state Assembly Speaker, Mr. Perez serves all the people of California, including those of us who support the Tea Party Movement.

This Democrat should be ashamed of himself for using such juvenile rhetoric, particularly in a public forum.  He should forthwith issue an apology.  And while he’s at it, he would do well to invite a coalition of Tea Party activists to his office in order to familiarize himself with our concerns.

(H/t Gateway Pundit.)

So pervasive are Democratic dirty tricks this fall that even the New York Times takes note:

Seeking any advantage in their effort to retain control of Congress, Democrats are working behind the scenes in a number of tight races to bolster long-shot third-party candidates who have platforms at odds with the Democratic agenda but hold the promise of siphoning Republican votes. . . .

In California, Republicans have received recorded phone calls from a professed but unidentified “registered Republican” who says she is voting for the American Independent Party’s candidate for a House seat, Bill Lussenheide, not for the incumbent Republican, Mary Bono Mack.

The caller says she is voting that way because “it’s time we show Washington what a true conservative looks like.”

The recording was openly paid for by the Democratic candidate for the seat, Mayor Steve Pougnet of Palm Springs.

A group backing Harry Reid has paid for a radio ad “advertisement promoting the Senate campaign of a “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate, Scott Ashjian“:

Nevada is one of several states, including Florida, where “Tea Party” political committees have appeared on ballot lines without the knowledge or support of leading Tea Party activists, who have generally chosen not to support third-party candidacies. In most of those cases, local bloggers, reporters and lawyers have traced connections to local Democrats, drawing lawsuits, complaints and, in a couple of cases, admissions of involvement.

Guess Democrats realize their ideas aren’t resonating this year and in order to win, need to play to those that do.

(H/t:  RealClearPolitics.)

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

–Ronald Wilson Reagan

Voters are not worried about ‘extreme’ label on candidates:

Democratic attacks on Republicans and the Tea Party for being too extreme are failing to sway voters, according to The Hill 2010 Midterm Election Poll.

Only 15 percent of likely Democratic voters said they were voting to “ensure extreme right-wing candidates are not elected to Congress.”

Independents, who are the largest bloc of undecided voters and are vital to Democrats if the party is to retain its House majority, are also unconvinced by warnings about extremism. Only 14 percent of them said they would vote for a Democrat to avoid electing an extreme right-wing candidate; 11 percent said they would vote Republican to avoid electing an extreme left-wing candidate.

This poll leads Jennifer Rubin to question whether Tea Party candidates really are that extreme:

First, with an exception here or there, the Tea Party–backed candidates don’t seem all that extreme. What’s extreme is spending trillions, running up the debt, and telling the public that nationalized health care will save money. Compared to that, the vow to stop it is downright sane to most voters’ way of thinking. And second, the messengers — especially Obama — have very little credibility. Nancy Pelosi calling anyone extreme simply isn’t going to influence anybody who isn’t already a committed liberal.

GOProud’s Chris Barron has a great piece in the Daily Caller today which both echoes a point I made this morning on the Tea Parties and goes beyond it, reminding us of the real nature of this grassroots movement.

He warns that some “big-government conservatives like Tony Perkins” and Mike Huckabee are trying to “to co-opt the Tea Party’s movement and message. They have realized that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em“:

Nothing would make the left happier than to see the Tea Party taken over by big-government social conservatives. Liberals and their friends in the mainstream media know how politically poisonous big-government conservatism was to the conservative movement. Nothing would make them happier than to have the keys to the Tea Party turned over to the same folks who brought us embarrassing electoral defeats in 2006 and 2008 and who demoralized the conservative movement.

Big-government conservatives know too that their message is political poison — they have watched as the American people, and the conservative movement in particular, has turned away from seeking government as the solution to the social, economic and spiritual challenges facing our country.

Emphasis added. Exactly. Exactly. Nice to see the leader of a gay organization say that we should not turn to government for the solutions to our social “challenges” — or any challenge for that matter. It was just a simple pleasure to read Chris’s concluding flourish on freedom. I won’t steal his thunder. Just read the whole thing!

It’s so nice to have a gay organization not aping the equality rhetoric of the left-of-center gay organizations, but instead appealing to the defining idea of this nation — and the GOP.  And the Tea Parties.

Just two years ago, Barack Obama thought he as at the vanguard of a new political movement set to transform America.  And based on the enthusiasm of his supporters and his success at the polls, he didn’t seem far off the mark.

Today, the political movement with the greatest energy is not a political campaign built around a charismatic man, but a diffuse one built around an idea:  freedom.  And it begin to coalescence not in conjunction with Obama’s movement, but in response to his policies as president — in response to his attempt to transform America.

No wonder Obama is angry and sniping at Republicans and warning of the Empire striking back.  He is no longer the defining force in American politics.  The energy is not with him, it’s against him.  From the sounds of his plaints, his internal polling look about as bad for Democrats as Gallup’s forecast if “40% of voters turned out — a rate typical in recent years“.

It’s not just that energy is with the Tea Party movement; majorities of Americans now warm to their ideas.

There is an idea animating America — the idea of liberty.