On 9/2/2010 10:51 AM, Chuck Munson wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Dennis Claxton<ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> I was just looking for estimates of how many tea partyers there are and
>> found this at Patchwork Nation:
> The Tea Party movement is pretty large. Let's bear in mind that many
> of these people have no history of attending protests, so counting
> their numbers at protests isn't going to give you a good estimate.
>
> Their movement has been having rallies all over the place, which
> indicates how widespread the movement has become. They had a large
> rally at the minor league baseball park in Kansas City, Kansas some
> time ago. On July 4th, there was a small demo in my neighborhood,
> which is completely weird given that my location in the burbs never
> sees any kind of protest.
According to the NYT poll from April, about 2.3% of adults say they've been to a TP rally or meeting. That's like 2.7 million adults. It's about the same as the number nationwide who said they attended anti-Iraq war protests or rallies in 2002-2003. And yet the TP is a broad ideological movement while the 2002-03 demos were in opposition to a specific policy - a war that was unusual for its weak rationale and abundance of elite skepticism.
> I've been very concerned with Glenn Beck up until his rally this
> weekend. Now I'm less concerned and think the way to dilute his power
> is to not give him any attention. He's dangerous in that he spreads
> some idiotic ideas among a limited segment of the population. Trying
> to interact with these loyal fans is becoming impossible, which I
> think will lead to their marginalization.
You might be right, but this...
> He has popular radio and TV shows. His rally had lots of
> media attention in the months leading up to it. His followers are the
> type to do whatever the guy tells them to do. He's also put himself in
> front of a significant grassroots movement that is royally pissed at
> "Washington" right now. And his fans are mostly middle class, so they
> have the time and means to travel to a rally.
>
> Any union or anti-war coalition organizer would love to have these
> signs aligned for a national rally on the Mall.
...is sort of like saying if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bicycle.
SA