Clarence Page: 'Is The Tea Party Over?'
Want to know just how scared of the Tea Party America's media are?
On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page published a column entitled "Is The Tea Party Over?":
Has the tea party peaked? Republican lawmakers affiliated with the upstart anti-tax movement scored big in the nerve-racking debt-ceiling debacle, but the victory left enough hard feelings to feed the movement's ultimate defeat.
So let's understand Page's thinking.
The Tea Party nine months ago scored a huge victory assisting Republicans to the biggest midterm election landslide in decades.
The following month, before any of these Tea Partiers had even been sworn into Congress, the President and his Party caved into their wishes by extending the Bush tax cuts.
Last week, the President and his Party caved into Tea Party demands to not have tax increases as part of the debt ceiling agreement.
And it is the Tea Party that is in danger of "ultimate defeat?"
Let's hear more:
Polls indicate growing numbers of the public think the teas have become part of the problem they came to Washington to cure.
Fully 82 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress' performance in the hard-fought debt limit debate, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. People love to hate Congress, even when they like their own congressman. But this was Congress' highest disapproval rating, the pollsters said, since they began asking the question in 1977.
And public disapproval of the tea party doubled to 40 percent from 18 percent when that question was first asked in April 2010.
So a New York Times/CBS News poll finds 40 percent disapprove of the Tea Party. Given how so-called "news" outlets like the Times and CBS have been mercilessly pounding on Tea Party members for over two years, is that surprising?
Frankly, it's more shocking given the negative media coverage of this group that more Americans don't disapprove of it.
But the only poll that really matters happens on Election Day, and the last one was quite good for the Tea Party.
Page sees this as old news:
Tea party freshmen faced a more conservative electorate in the 2010 midterms than the larger turnout that's expected in a presidential year. Yet they continue to push further right. Let the voters decide.
That's a good point, for midterm elections are typically more participated in by conservatives than liberals with 2006 being a notable exception. As such, history would suggest at least a more moderate turnout next November.
However, with the economy weakening, a credit rating downgrade, and monstrous budget deficits as far as the eye can see, it seems specious to project the public rising against the only movement preaching fiscal sanity.
Page doesn't see it that way:
Grass-roots movements are like bees, an old saying goes, they sting and then they die. The tea party, like the original Boston Tea Party, fits what the founders called a movement of the moment. Like others, the teas are likely to melt, at best, into one of the major parties.
Maybe, but this might be wishful thinking.
The reality is the Tea Party is the most powerful grassroots movement to hit America's shores in decades, and its real power and impact might yet to be fully felt.
This seems especially likely given the trajectory of the economy, the debt, and which Party has basically been in control of government since the downturn happened and the deficit exploded.
What Page ignored in his piece is that the nation made a huge turn to the left in 2006 and 2008 in the hopes that the imposition of non-Republican views would improve America.
When the Democrats took over Congress in January 2007, unemployment was 4.4 percent. It is now 9.1 percent.
The budget deficit created by the outgoing Republican Congress was only $161 billion. It is now $1.6 trillion.
The total outstanding debt in January 2007 was $8.7 trillion. It is now $14.6 trillion.
And, before the Democrats took control of everything, America's credit rating was AAA. It is now AA+.
If Page thinks Americans are going to look at what's happened in the past four years and blame it all on the Tea Party I've got some swampland in Florida I'd like to show him.
- Noel Sheppard's blog
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Comments
Page is in trouble, now
Submitted by ThisnThat on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:01pm.
Didn't Kerry warn everybody to stop talking about the Tea Party?
__________
“Didn't win the Medal of Honor? Didn't even serve? Then lie about it. We'll support you." — 9th Circuit Court
Tea Party - just gettin' started!
Submitted by Curly on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:06pm.
Tea Party Movement as Large as Nation’s Entire Liberal Population, Say Gallup Polls
Friday, August 05, 2011, 01:18 PM
The TEA party support
Submitted by GregE on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:10pm.
is actually higher than any poll will show, because the media has slammed the TEA party every chance they get, and viewers are seeing those slams, and the polls mention TEA party.
If the polls left out any labels and just polled fiscal philosophy itself, the fiscal philosophy of TEA party will far outweigh the Left.
Is the overspending over?
Submitted by GregE on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:06pm.
That's the question, Clarence. The TEA party didn't run up $15 trillion in debt.
The TEA party wants to keep America from collapsing. Clarence Page wants the TEA party to be gone.
Someone should tell old clarabelle
Submitted by gr29az on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:20pm.
That if he thought 2010 was something wait till 2012. Buckle up and hold on
Here we come. God bless the tea party and America
Good morning gr29
Submitted by cocodrie on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 1:17pm.
delete
Jesus Loves You so much He died for you
Tea Party
Submitted by Joe C Camel on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:11pm.
Just who do these folks think the Tea Party is exactly? I don't know anyone who "belongs" to the Tea Party groups. I do however know at least 100 people who agree with their principles and vote along the lines of agreement, thus conservative. Tea Party is just a "talking point" to the Pols out there to discredit conservative/libertarian ideas. If 2010 was indicative of things to come, 2012 is going to drive the socialists nuts.
Don't forget
Submitted by gr29az on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:12pm.
we have the first dead beat president in history. He's going to wear this for the rest
Of his life.
One number Noel missed
Submitted by TheHistorian on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:12pm.
In 2006, the total future liabilities of the US were $58.2 Trillion. It is now $65.5 Trillion. http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=88851 This is a $7.3 Trillion increase, not just a $5.9 Trillion. Clarence, do the words "total failure" mean anything to you when you talk about the liberals?
Dennis Prager
It will never be over. It's
Submitted by jessieH on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:15pm.
It will never be over. It's the voice of the American Citizens. Do you think they can hear us, now?
The left and their hind tit
Submitted by ricklail on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:30pm.
The left and their hind tit suckers in the MSM hear and they are scared.
on the contrary
Submitted by spepper on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:18pm.
On the contrary, Mr. Page-- we have only BEGUN to FIGHT!
'Zackly!
Submitted by ex buff e-dub on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:41pm.
What we've seen thus far is more like the first battles at Lexington and Concord!
- HT Michele Bachmann
Richard Pearson, HMS Serapis...
Submitted by NevadanConservative on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 2:33pm.
"Bonhomme Richard, do you surrender?"
John Paul Jones, USS Bonhomme Richard: "No, sir! I have not yet BEGUN to fight!"
And if there is any spirit left in this nation, neither have we.
NVCon
In the words of
Submitted by AGreer on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 8:09pm.
Division Commander General Tony McAuliffe: "NUTS !"
http://www.thedropzone.org/europe/Bulge/kinnard.html
Didn't work out well for the Germans !
kerry didn't critize tea paty
Submitted by alvin on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:27pm.
Didn't Kerry warn everybody to stop talking about the Tea Party?
Here's what Kerry said:
The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."
So accordingly
Tea Party =
absolutely absurd notion . . .which everybody knows is not factual."
Turn The Page Clarence ' The
Submitted by Barack Must Go on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:39pm.
Turn The Page Clarence ' The Tea Party Is All Over '. Even democrats have come over from the ' dark side ' to rejoin America ( Tea Party & conservatives ) once again.
I'd say the exact opposite
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:43pm.
I'd say the exact opposite will occur, the Tea party is just about ready to truly get rolling, not find its demise, but find it's strength.
I could be wrong....
Submitted by pbthinker on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:44pm.
I believe the tea party is just beginning. It's pretty obvious that the debate we just finished wouldn't have taken place at all if it weren't for the tea party movement. I think the Democrats know this and their media friends know this. There seems to be a concerted effort to demonize the tea party and it's pretty funny when you see it coming from so many liberals at once.
The more they demonize the tea party the more it will grow because they just don't understand the tea party. They're looking at it as some organized moved the Republicans have put together, like all those Democrat front organizations that have fancy names and lofty goals (on paper) but are little more than propaganda arms of the Democrats. Since those involved in the tea party and those who know people involved in the tea party , know they aren't all that well organized and they're really concerned about the future of the country, the lies only make it grow stronger. If someone lies about your mother, father, sister, brother, friend, neighbor and co-worker, the first thing you do is defend them. If their cause is legitimate, this will cause you to pay attention and join them.
Anyway, that's my theory, for what it's worth. They will not engage in a debate on the subject, you can bet on that.
I will concede
Submitted by bkeyser on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:46pm.
that much of our fiscal problem has been decades in the making- it began with FDR's New Deal and was aggressively augmented by LBJ's Great Society. These are the two largest drivers of today's debt. Then you have the smaller and less staminate programs like the CRA and everything the HUD and EPA have ever gotten their grubby hands around. Politicians from both parties have continued to feed these programs, mostly with borrowed money in recent years, and eventually -like the real estate market- it was bound to turn downhill.
But it always returns to the mandatory spending that is driving us to bankruptcy and while these entitlement programs have been politically untouchable since their creation (which was known to everyone would be the case at the time they were created), it is the Tea Party and the Tea Party only with the fortitude to push for corrections to be made with these programs. Short of entitlement reform, we'll not right the ship. And it is Democrats and liberal Republicans who stand in the way.
The Heritage Foundation illustrates the problems we face in one very simple chart. We could eliminate all discretionary spending, Defense, Education, Interior, Commerce, Environmental -all of it- and by 2049 we'll exceed the average revenues for the last 30 years. That period includes the Clinton-era tax rates, of course. And it is exactly why the Balanced Budget Amendment requires a spending cap at 18% of GDP. And exactly why Democrats can't possibly support it; they know it'll be the end of their entitlement society.
H/T HotAir. Ed has a geat description of why we were downgraded and how Democrats, by blockading entitlement reform, allowed it to happen. It's also why it was important for Republicans not to be correctly labled as the obstructionists.
Spot on!!!
Submitted by BoilerFan on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 1:03pm.
Excellent comments, bkeyser.
I was planning on posting something along the lines of your post. So, in the interest of not being overly redundant, I'll simply say "ditto" and move on.
I AM the Tea Party!
Submitted by BBallleaper on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:50pm.
And when we take over Clarence will be one of the first sent to the gulag re-education camp. However, I don't see a parole in his future.
Back in 2008 . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:53pm.
. . . The Democrats and the MSM echoes were posin gthe qeustion: "Is the GOP over?" According to their so-called narrative, the Republican Party had suffered a crushing electoral defeat from which their recovery was seriously in doubt.
Just 2 years later, the GOP regained control of the House and made significant gains in the Senate, and many of the freshman Republicans.
Now, half a year later, Page speculates that the Tea Party is done.
Yet, all the media and Democratic attention is focused on the Tea Party. In utter desperation, they have labeled them as hostage takers, terrorists, and suicide bombers, and Kerry has scolded the media for giving them coverage.
That doesn't sound to me like the Tea Party is over. I think it's just warming up.
The poll question on the Debt ceiling debate, we'd like to hear
Submitted by Gary Hall on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:56pm.
The poll question on the Debt ceiling debate, we'd like to hear
S & P warned in April that a downgrade was possible if we didn't get our house in order and make serious progress towards addressing the "medium" and "long term" budgetary challenges.
President Obama had long ignored his own Bowles/Simpson Debt Commission recommendations, and had not offered any sense of any administration-led effort being made to address these budgetary challenges facing us.
As the debt ceiling - deficit reducing - negotiating got tough, President Obama quipped at a press conference that he'd rather be talking about new federal programs (just the opposite of cutting the budget).
Polls show that most voters simply did not want the debt ceiling raised; that most voters supported the Republican House Cut, Cap and Balance Bill; that most Americans were disappointed that the final agreement worked out last week did not cut more; an almost 3:1 margin to those who wanted less cuts in spending.
It's the Tea Party that supports these majority supported views and it's the Tea Party that pushed the Republicans to get serious with this White House and the Democrats into addressing what S & P had warned us of.
And Clarence Page wants to promote the concept that the Tea Party is "over?"
(;~> gary
“As the debt ceiling -
Submitted by Reaver on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 1:08pm.
“As the debt ceiling - deficit reducing - negotiating got tough, President Obama quipped at a press conference that he'd rather be talking about new federal programs (just the opposite of cutting the budget).”
And as soon as the deal was done Obama announced a new federal spending program, a multibillion dollar “infrastructure bank”, tone deaf doesn’t begin to describe it maybe monomaniacal.
And it's the OTHER party that
Submitted by ChuckySchmucky on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 9:52pm.
And it's the OTHER party that called us "terrorists" for trying to rein in the spending, while THEY went to the mat to protect their reckless, out of control deficit spending in place.
And now they're blaming the Tea Parties -- the TEA PARTIES! -- for the down grade.
If you think that's deranged, just wait until this time next year, when Obama's poll numbers are stuck in the low 40s and they see another landslide coming. They'll not only blame the Tea Partiers for the downgrade, they'll blame them for the deficit.
Once again a liberal member
Submitted by Reaver on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 12:57pm.
Once again a liberal member of the media sees conservatism succeeding looks into his crystal ball and sees a huge voter backlash just over the horizon. The same media that said republicans would face a huge voter backlash for opposing obamacare. This is a recurring theme in the media, whenever republicans are successful doom is just around the corner.
Responding to the question is
Submitted by TerryWest on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 1:27pm.
Responding to the question is the Tea Party over? is like replying to a young child in the back seat of the car asking every half mile, are we are there yet?
Eventually we say yes! (even though not half way to our destination) just to calm their anxiety so that they might go back to sleep.
they're hoping the monster under the bed isn't real
Submitted by MidAmerica on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 1:23pm.
Hopefully the media will keep trashing the Tea Party because that will help keep the members energized. They did the same thing for Sarah Palin. The media made her into a national figure. Do one of those man-in-the-street questionnaires and ask who is the vice-president of the United States and you will get a lot of blank stares but Sarah Palin is easily recognizable.
Contrary to the claims of the
Submitted by BoilerFan on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 1:29pm.
Contrary to the claims of the "inside-the-beltway"/establishment types (including RINO Republicans), the "tea party" movement is one of the most promising movements in modern American history. The primary focus of the movement--returning common sense into our nation's debates over our fiscal future--is perfectly responsible and desperately needed.
I came extremely close to officially leaving the Republican Party a couple of years ago, mostly because far too many of the party's national leaders seemed to be steering the party toward a permanent "Democrat-lite" position on most fiscal issues. With the rise of the "tea party" movement, I've delayed that departure, deciding to give the Republican Party one last chance to live up to the party's own economic principles.
As long as the party adheres to the demands of spending restraint being put forth by these patriotic Americans, I'll stay on board. The second they abandon those principles for short-term political expediency, as they have far too frequently in recent decades, the GOP will definitely lose me...and millions of other conservative Americans. The Republican Party will "go the way of the Whigs" unless their actions back up their oft-stated words about fiscal responsibility.
I extend a hearty and sincere "Thank you!!!" to all of the tea party patriots for not giving up on our country and for standing up for fiscal sanity.
Tea Party: "Is Clarence Page
Submitted by mustango on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 2:00pm.
Tea Party: "Is Clarence Page still writing?"
Another item of wishful thinking
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 2:23pm.
portrayed as news by a liberal.
The only thing the TEA party
Submitted by killa37 on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 2:52pm.
The only thing the TEA party believers are 'over' is being 'over listening to, or paying attention to, or caring about ANY of these lame-brained, delusional, out-of-touch MSM types...............and the bloodsucking leeches and filthy vermin that they are supporting.
Methinks Clarence be engaging in a lot of wishful thinkin'
Submitted by Dave. on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 3:58pm.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when the TEA Party will no-longer be necessary, as all of the commies will have been run off at the point of a pitchfork.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
hmm...
Submitted by michiganruth on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 6:01pm.
did Clarence slip and admit that the Tea Party is indeed a "grass roots" movement? I thought that it was all just a big hoax by the Koch Brothers! who knew.
More leftist projection
Submitted by ChuckySchmucky on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 9:41pm.
Got some news for you, Clarence, you delusional, arrogant schmuck:
The only movement that is over is the nation's brief, extremely destructive and most unfortunate flirtation with Marxism.
Let this atrocious, horrific, un-American mistake serve as a warning for generations to come about what happens when you toss American values aside.
And has-been, warmed-over, irrelevant Page will not retire.
Submitted by drsamherman on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 10:33pm.
Warmed-over lefties like Page are like joints with bad osteoarthritis. They just keep getting older, creakier and keep irritating until the end.
Demise of the T.P.
Submitted by donaldduck on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 12:08am.
Page, like all of the other liberal media mummies, all scared to death of the Tea party movement. They have been constantly trying to diminish it (racist, crazy, idiots, blah, blah, blah) ever since its birth and it has only gotten stronger. You may want to print this sometime in your paper as a warning, Clarence, that all liberals had better hold onto their little bal*s because the best (or in the case of the libs, worst) is yet to come. 2012 is going to be politically traumatic for the libs, especially their vaunted "leader", "Richard" Obama.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm Tea Party is over eh?
Submitted by Prisondog1776 on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 12:13am.
so the Tea Party is over huh? Just a bunch of racist, white, gun totin' , Bible thumpers ehh? Well look at this link.:)Britt Hysen: Black Tea Party Protests NAACP Annual Convention42 From www.Breitbart.com
Sorry this link
Submitted by Prisondog1776 on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 12:18am.
http://biggovernment.com/bhysen/2011/08/07/black-tea-party-protests-naac...
40 Percent huh?
Submitted by pcnav on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 2:35am.
Considering that 40% of the public are die hard democRAT socialists this number is the same as it ever was. As for the 82% disapproval of congress how does that translate to the tea party only? It was the democRATs that sank this economy since 2006 when the Pelosi/Reid engine of destruction started destroying businesses with legislation that sucked the hard earned cash of average citizens into stupid assed welfare programs that feed leeching democRAT voters.
Then the democRATs have the gall to say we need to be taxed more because they have mismanaged the tax dollars they have sucked from us already? Go to hell democRATs!!!!
a Quasi Tea Party song
Submitted by Prisondog1776 on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 3:10am.
From Arron Lewis formerly of the band Staind great video and song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQzw_Ax8Cw
News of the Tea Party's death
Submitted by Free Stinker on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 10:35am.
News of the Tea Party's death has been greatly exagerated
/// Sarah Palin Fan since July 11, 2007 /// خال
Yup
Submitted by GW on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 11:13am.
"Grass-roots movements are like bees, an old saying goes, they sting and then they die. The tea party, like the original Boston Tea Party, fits what the founders called a movement of the moment."
Yeah, the original Boston Tea Party was just a little something in a larger little something called the American Revolution that never amounted to anything either.
(sarcasm, obviously)
And what will you do or say, Mr. Page ...
Submitted by LibertyAtStake on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 8:12pm.
... when the *real* TEA Party gets started in 2012? If you think we're having a good time now, you haven't seen nothin' yet.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
"Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive"