• Occupy Wall Street,  Polling,  Tea Party

    Poll Watch: Who Has More Popular Support – The Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street?

    Tea Party April 15 2009 080

    Ventura County Tea Party Rally, April 2009

    The answer is probably NEITHER.

    That’s tricky. We asked the same “support” or “oppose” question of both in the aforementioned USA Today/Gallup poll. The results show broadly similar views, although the Tea Party, with a 22% supporter, 27% opponent response in this poll, is slightly more negative than the 26% supporter, 19% opponent profile for the OWS movement. Half or more of Americans are neither supporters nor opponents of these movements. That underscores the point made by my colleague Jeff Jones in his analysis — namely that the majority of Americans are not highly caught up in these movements that occupy so much of the news media’s time.

    My friends and colleagues, by and large, could care less. So, this is probably correct.

    Unless, of course, one of the demonstrations disrupts traffic, then that person will hate your group!

  • Christine O'Donnell,  Sarah Palin,  Tea Party

    Christine O’Donnell Bouncing Around With The Iowa Tea Party

    Dang, make up your mind.

    The organizer of the Tea Party rally in Iowa this weekend told NBC News he had to cancel Christine O’Donnell’s speaking slot again — after she was re-invited — “after a conversation with Sarah Palin aides — and is now hopeful Palin will attend the Saturday rally.

    I can understand Sarah Palin’s concern.

    Obviously, someone in the Iowa Tea Party is not happy with Sarah Palin’s demands.

  • Polling,  President 2012,  Rick Perry,  Tea Party

    President 2012 Poll Watch: Tea Party Supporters Are Backing Rick Perry



    According to the latest Gallup Poll.

    Rick Perry’s candidacy has attracted strong initial support from Republicans who identify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement. Perry leads by 21 percentage points over the closest contenders among this group, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann. Among Republicans who say they do not support the Tea Party movement, Romney and Perry are essentially tied.

    These results are based on an Aug. 17-21 Gallup poll, which showed Perry overtaking Romney as the front-runner for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination among all Republicans nationwide.

    The poll finds that 58% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents identify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement, with 36% saying they do not consider themselves supporters. Included among the group of Tea Party supporters is a smaller group — representing 12% of Republicans — who say they are “strong” supporters of the movement. Among this smaller group, Perry’s lead is even greater, 46% to 16%, over Bachmann, with all other candidates in single digits.

    Since his announcement, Texas Governor Rick Perry has consolidated his voter support and leaped into the lead in most polls. Perry has frozen out Michele Bachmann as the leader of the Tea Party and may have forestalled a run by Sarah Palin (but we will see about that on September 3rd).

    Perry has immediately become the preferred Republican nomination candidate of Tea Party movement supporters and, by extension, those who view government spending and power as the most important issue. He also demonstrates strong appeal to moral values voters, and is competitive with Romney among Republicans rating business and the economy as the most important issue.

    Perry will attempt to consolidate the support of these constituencies in the coming months as he begins his nomination campaign in earnest, including participating for the first time in candidate debates next month. Whether he is able to solidify his status as the new front-runner, or whether it turns out to be a temporary response to the excitement generated by his entry into the race, will become apparent in future Gallup updates of Republicans’ nomination preferences.

  • Amazon Tax,  California,  California Citizens Redistricting Commission,  Flap's California Morning Collection,  Internet Sales Taxes,  Tea Party

    Flap’s California Morning Collection: August 3, 2011

    A morning collection of links and comments about my home, California.

    For Central Coast Democrats, a prize and a problem

    Democrats on California’s Central Coast were handed a rare prize last week when the Citizens Redistricting Commission created a Senate district with no incumbent and a 12-percentage point Democratic voter registration edge.

    The race is already on to see who gets to claim the prize of becoming the party’s candidate, and it could be run on a track that is crowded, uncertain and potentially dangerous.

    Three contestants have either reached or are approaching the starting line:

    – Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara, a former assemblywoman who lost a Senate race in 2008 by fewer than 900 votes in a district that was much less friendly to a Democrat. She says she’s “seriously considering” becoming a candidate. “I’m very much leaning in that direction.”

    – Jason Hodge of Oxnard, a Ventura County firefighter and an elected commissioner of the Oxnard Harbor District. Hodge has been planning a run for the Legislature for months, has formed a campaign committee and begun raising money. He says he’s definitely running and has “a full expectation to raise $1 million for this primary.”

    – Pedro Nava of Santa Barbara, a former assemblyman and onetime member of the California Coastal Commission. He says he hasn’t made up his mind, but muses that the Senate district “almost looks like someone drew it for me.” Nava says that by Labor Day, “Everybody should have a sense of what’s real and what’s possible.”

    None says he or she would shy away from a primary race in which there are multiple Democratic candidates.

    Tea Party picks up steam, demands further cuts

    National Tea Party leaders in California were thrilled about one by-product of the political bloodbath over raising the federal debt ceiling: The fight showed that after two years of rabble-rousing from outside the Capitol, the Tea Party has real power to shape the debate in Washington.

    Their challenge now that President Obama has signed the debt limit law: Can the Tea Party transform its government-shrinking mantra into long-term power, or will it be a one-hit wonder?

    They’re not stopping to think about it. This month, Tea Partiers will storm town hall meetings of Republican and Democratic members of Congress and demand even more cuts. It’s the same strategy Tea Party groups used two years ago to protest – and ultimately water down – the health care reform law when they burst on the national scene.

    “You’re going to see a lot of heat at those meetings,” said Mark Meckler, a Grass Valley (Nevada County) resident and co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, a national organization that called House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to lift the ceiling “an embarrassment.”

    Tea Partiers say the debt deal didn’t cut enough federal spending, was crafted behind closed doors, and assigned responsibility for further cuts to a small, joint committee of Congress.

    That heat will be stoked further on Aug. 27 in Napa, when thousands of supporters and at least two GOP presidential candidates are expected to attend a rally to start a Tea Party Express bus trip across the country. It will end in Tampa, where the group will co-host a Republican presidential debate with CNN.

    Two years ago, the idea of the Tea Party co-hosting a debate with the self-proclaimed “most trusted name in news” was unimaginable.

    Dan Walters: Remapping of California districts still on a rocky road

    So the state’s new redistricting commission, after countless hours of hearings, discussions and mind-numbing exercises in specific line-drawing, has produced its almost-final maps of 177 legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization districts.

    What now?

    Partisan and independent analysts have cranked up their computers, and their scenarios generally agree that the proposed districts, which need one more commission vote this month, would result in a Democratic gain of congressional seats and give Democrats a strong chance to claim two-thirds majorities in both legislative houses.

    Whether those conclusions become reality, however, would depend on what happens in “swing” districts – those potentially winnable by either party – in the 2012 and 2014 election cycles. And their dynamics would be affected by the new and untested “top two” primary system.

    It’s “would” rather than “will” because it’s uncertain whether the Citizens Redistricting Commission’s maps will actually go into effect, since they are subject to attack by those – Republicans, mostly – who believe they got the shaft.

    Critics could challenge the maps by referendum – collecting signatures to put them on the 2012 ballot – and if a referendum qualifies, the state Supreme Court would adopt temporary maps for the 2012 elections.

    It could simply decree that the commission’s maps be used for 2012 while voters decide their permanent fate.

    That’s what the court, headed by Chief Justice Rose Bird, decided when a Republican referendum challenged the 1981 maps adopted by a Democratic Legislature and then-Gov. Jerry Brown – a ruling that fueled a drive to oust Bird in the 1986 election.

    Or the Supreme Court could draw its own maps, as it did to break redistricting stalemates after the 1970 and 1990 censuses.

    Attorney general, FPPC asked to investigate identity theft ads

    The state attorney general and California’s campaign watchdog agency have been asked to investigate a new labor-backed group telling voters that signing initiative petitions increases risk of identity fraud.

    Carl DeMaio, a San Diego councilman supporting an effort to qualify a local pension reform measure, filed a complaint over the weekend with the Fair Political Practices Commission alleging that Californians Against Identity Theft is running afoul of state disclosure laws and “knowingly using false information to alarm voters and stifle the constitutionally protected rights of individuals” in the radio spots and website it launched last week.

    In a separate letter, DeMaio asked state Attorney General Kamala Harris to investigate the ad and other activities he said are “undermining the initiative process” for San Diego voters.

    As The Bee reported Friday, the organization behind the ads has received funding from the California Building and Construction Trades Council. The secretary-treasurer of the group, a retired attorney who formerly represented the union, declined to identify other contributors Friday. He said Californians Against Identity Theft, which has not filed a campaign committee, has been incorporated as a 501(c)4 nonprofit.

    Californians Against Identity Theft’s 60-second radio ad, which is airing on stations in Sacramento and Southern California, urges listeners not to sign initiative petitions.Organizers say the effort is intended to educate the public about a need for more regulation of the initiative system, particularly the paid-signature gathering industry. But the ad came under fire Friday from good government and consumer advocates who said its claims were largely unsubstantiated and the timing sparked questions about whether the real goal of the campaign is to derail efforts to qualify measures circulating for local or statewide elections.

    Attorneys for a statewide proposal to overturn a new online sales tax collection law have also taken aim at the effort, asking radio stations to stop airing the ad amid concerns that it is “filled with false and misleading statements.” The “Amazon Tax” referendum is one of several high-profile measures currently collecting petition signatures to qualify for the 2012 ballot.

    Enjoy your morning!

  • Joe Biden,  Tea Party

    Vice President Joe Biden Denies He Called Tea Party American Lawmakers TERRORISTS

    I guess we will see if anyone has a tape recording of the caucus meeting.

    Vice President Joe Biden tells CBS News that published reports that he compared Tea Party-linked lawmakers to “terrorists” during a closed-door meeting Monday are “absolutely not true.”

    “I did not use the terrorism word,” Biden told CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Scott Pelley.

    Politico, citing “several sources in the room,” reported Monday afternoon that the vice president, during a closed-door meeting with House Democrats about the deal to raise the debt limit, agreed with an argument by Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, who reportedly asserted that “[w]e have negotiated with terrorists.”

    The report said the vice president asserted in response, “They have acted like terrorists.”

    Biden told Pelley he let lawmakers “vent” about the deal, which includes spending cuts but may not include revenue increases. (Some liberal House Democrats have vowed not to back the deal.) But he says he did not assert that he agreed with the terrorism comparison.

    “What happened was there were some people who said they felt like they were being held hostage by terrorists,” he said. “I never said that they were terrorists or weren’t terrorists, I just let them vent.”

    Added Biden: “I said even if that were the case, what’s been happening when you now have taken and paid the debt and move that down so we can now discuss, the nuclear weapon’s been taken out of anyone’s hands.”

    OK, until I hear otherwise, I will accept what the Vice President has said. But, what are these comments about a nuclear weapon?

    Slow Joe Biden has a habit of shooting off his mouth before his brain does any cognition. I would not be surprised, if he simply blocked out of his head what others have reported.

    But, for now….Biden gets a pass.

  • American Debt Linit,  Gabrielle Giffords,  Joe Biden,  Tea Party,  Terrorists

    Vice President Joe Biden Likens Tea Party Americans to TERRORISTS



    Good ol’ Slow Joe Biden put his foot in his mouth again.

    Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit.

    Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.

    “We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

    Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists,” according to several sources in the room.

    Biden’s office declined to comment about what the vice president said inside the closed-door session.

    Earlier in the day, Biden told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in trying to negotiate deals.

    The vice president’s hot rhetoric about tea party Republicans underscored the tense moment on Capitol Hill as four party leaders in both chambers work to round up the needed votes in an abbreviated time frame. The bill would raise the debt limit by as much as $2.4 trillion through the end of next year and reduce the deficit by an equal amount over the next decade.

    Democrats had no shortage of colorful phrases in wake of the deal.

    Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) called it a “Satan sandwich,” and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called seemed to enjoy the heat analogy, saying: “the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.

    The Vice President of the United States should immediately apologize. This statement is just BULL.

    Rep. Mike Doyle should apologize as well.

    I thought President Obama and the Democrats called for “CIVILITY” after the Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shooting?