The Democrat Thread

[kapkomet]

And if the stimulus had actually done what it was supposed to do, you know spur a recovery... We wouldn't be at 9% unemployment with a few trillion down the toilet.

 

Obligatory response for most Dems: Look at those graphs in the other thread. Unemployment would be 65%, and GDP would have been -150% if it weren't for the "stimulus", and in fact, we should have done it 5 times bigger so that it REALLY would have worked!!!! Government spending is the only thing big enough to keep us from shooting ourselves.

[Balta1701]

Obligatory response for most Dems: Look at those graphs in the other thread. Unemployment would be 65%, and GDP would have been -150% if it weren't for the "stimulus", and in fact, we should have done it 5 times bigger so that it REALLY would have worked!!!! Government spending is the only thing big enough to keep us from shooting ourselves.

Of course, none of this is an argument for why I'm wrong, and if it was worth my time, I could write the exact same thing about how we can cut regulations to save the world, but everyone would think it is stupid.

[Balta1701]

The US is pretty much at the "mature" stage, and there's not really a place to absorb a lot of buying. Houses? Nope. Households have 6 cars per family. Technology? Not really, everyone has a computer. Oh, I have an idea, let's make EVERYONE buy an electric car!! Well, okay, except that won't work, either.

 

It's not like there's some big huge MANUFACTURING issue that is going to get the US going again. I know that the hope and change crowd wants environmental type of expansion to be that next big thing, but it's cost prohibitive or it would have been done already a long time ago. Now, you'd want the government to come in and subsidize this type of activity, and what would that do? Pop goes the weasel.

By the way, one point worth repeating on this post again...it's worth noting that "cost prohibitive" is no longer a good excuse now that we're into an energy-constrained world.

 

As I pointed out in the other thread, every economic expansion in modern history has been associated with increased use of some cheap energy source. Now that oil production has plateaued, there is no obvious cheap energy source that can be expanded, and the market is behaving as if it is supply-constrained. Every time demand goes up, the price spikes until the point that the whole economy weakens and the demand goes away.

 

In order to get any sort of economic expansion from this point, it has to happen at a near-constant energy use, unless green energy is involved. Coal, nuclear, oil, etc., can't fix that problem, oil can't expand, coal and nuclear can't supply vehicles. The economy actually has to become more efficient if its going to expand. if that doesn't happen, then the economy will stagnate until it does.

[kapkomet]

If the only thing that is going to "save the economy" is more efficiency from the energy sector, let's all just die right now and get it over with.

[Balta1701]

If the only thing that is going to "save the economy" is more efficiency from the energy sector, let's all just die right now and get it over with.

Well, those are pretty much your actual choices. Like it or not. There's no more cheap oil to be found and everyone wants whats left. That fact will just get worse with time.

[kapkomet]

What you actually do is WOO (drill baby drill!!)... long enough to get ourselves in a different position for other sources of energy besides oil. But why use that logic when all you folks just want to make sure we continue to depend on foreign oil and pay through the nose for it?

 

 

 

 

[Balta1701]

What you actually do is WOO (drill baby drill!!)... long enough to get ourselves in a different position for other sources of energy besides oil. But why use that logic when all you folks just want to make sure we continue to depend on foreign oil and pay through the nose for it?

Of course, we are drilling baby drilling. The active U.S. oil rig count is at 1920 right now, which is the same level it was at when oil prices were $120 a barrel in 2008, and right back to the highest drilling levels the U.S. has seen since the oil price collapse in the mid-80's. (We're actually drilling as much now with lower average prices, in fact). I know, numbers don't matter when your gut tells you Obama is awful and won't let drilling happen anywhere, but the U.S. is drilling as many holes in as many things as humanly possible right now. The whole world is, and they have been for years, with the exception of the 2008 price collapse.

 

The problem is, that the new drilling has spent 5 years only barely accounting for the decline in older fields, and the new production is almost always much more expensive than the older fields. There's simply no more easy, cheap, surplus energy out there. It's not a lack of drilling, the world is being drilled like crazy.

[kapkomet]

Active rig doesn't mean that they're extracting... they may drill and then cap it because they can't transport it.

[Texsox]

What you actually do is WOO (drill baby drill!!)... long enough to get ourselves in a different position for other sources of energy besides oil. But why use that logic when all you folks just want to make sure we continue to depend on foreign oil and pay through the nose for it?

 

Why do you believe that we could produce oil for less than buying it overseas? Name anything that America can produce cheaper than overseas? There is a reason that US producers started investing so big in the Middle East. $$$$ bigger profits $$$$ The same reason Zenith isn't producing TVs here, why Detroit is all but dead, why IBM isn't the world's #1 maker of computers.

 

What US company would undercut the competition by even 10% on a commodity that we need?

[Balta1701]

Why do you believe that we could produce oil for less than buying it overseas? Name anything that America can produce cheaper than overseas? There is a reason that US producers started investing so big in the Middle East. $$$$ bigger profits $$$$ The same reason Zenith isn't producing TVs here, why Detroit is all but dead, why IBM isn't the world's #1 maker of computers.

 

What US company would undercut the competition by even 10% on a commodity that we need?

It's actually kind of funny you'd ask that today. Got a good link in reply, because I've got a good enough read on how working and wage standards in the U.S. are declining rapidly enough that in a few years, the U.S. will be basically to Europe what Mexico is to the U.S. today.

Link

Jokes about the U.S. becoming "Europe's Mexico" are commonplace, but now high-priced consultants are pushing the notion in all seriousness.

 

They're predicting that within five years certain Southern U.S. states will be among the cheapest manufacturing locations in the developed world -- and competitive with China.

 

For years advisers like the Boston Consulting Group got paid big bucks to tell their clients to produce in China. Now, they say, rising wages there, fueled by worker unrest, and low wages in Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina mean that soon it won't be worth the hassle of locating overseas.

 

Wages for China's factory workers certainly aren't going to rise to U.S. levels soon. BCG estimates they will be 17 percent of the projected U.S. manufacturing average -- $26 an hour for wages and benefits -- by 2015.

But because American workers have higher productivity, and since rising fuel prices are making it even more expensive to ship goods half way around the world, costs in the two countries are converging fast.

 

Dan Luria, research director of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, says many of the big-name consultancies, which until a year ago were advising their clients to "Asiafy their footprints," are now telling companies to think twice.

 

BCG bluntly praises Mississippi's "flexible unions/workers, minimal wage growth, and high worker productivity," estimating that in four years, workers in China's fast-growing Yangtze River Delta will cost only 31 percent less than Mississippi workers.

 

That's before you figure in shipping, duties, and possible quality issues. Add it all up, says BCG, and "China will no longer be the default low-cost manufacturing location."

[kapkomet]

That's actually almost true.

[Balta1701]

Active rig doesn't mean that they're extracting... they may drill and then cap it because they can't transport it.

You know something fun about oil transportation? The biggest lobbying issue that the pipeline operators make a case for whenever they're speaking to the media is lobbying for a restriction of individual rights and stronger government regulation. Of digging. They want "Call before you dig" laws strengthened. Commies. They'll take my backhoe when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

[Balta1701]

WaPo columnist Steve Pearlstein appears to have eaten his Wheaties over the weekend. Or something. Well, whatever it is, feed it to the rest of the media.

Want to know who is to blame, Mr. Big Shot Chief Executive? Just look in the mirror because the culprit is staring you in the face.

 

J’accuse, dude. J’accuse.

 

You helped create the monsters that are rampaging through the political and economic countryside, wreaking havoc and sucking the lifeblood out of the global economy.

 

Did you see this week’s cartoon cover of the New Yorker? That’s you in top hat and tails sipping champagne in the lifeboat as the Titanic is sinking. Problem is, nobody thinks it’s a joke anymore.

 

Did you presume we wouldn’t notice that you’ve been missing in action? I can’t say I was surprised. If you’d insisted on trotting out those old canards again, blaming everything on high taxes, unions, regulatory uncertainty and the lack of free-trade treaties, you would have lost whatever shred of credibility you have left.

 

My own bill of particulars begins right here in Washington, where over the past decade you financed and supported the growth of a radical right-wing cabal that has now taken over the Republican Party and repeatedly made a hostage of the U.S. government.

 

When it started out all you really wanted was to push back against a few meddlesome regulators or shave a point or two off your tax rate, but you were concerned it would look like special-interest rent-seeking. So when the Washington lobbyists came up with the clever idea of launching a campaign against over-regulation and over-taxation, you threw in some money, backed some candidates and financed a few lawsuits.

 

The more successful it was, however, the more you put in — hundreds of millions of the shareholders’ dollars, laundered through once-respected organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, phoney front organizations with innocent-sounding names such as Americans for a Sound Economy, and a burgeoning network of Republican PACs and financing vehicles. And thanks to your clever lawyers and a Supreme Court majority that is intent on removing all checks to corporate power, it’s perfectly legal.

 

Somewhere along the way, however, this effort took on a life of its own. What started as a reasonable attempt at political rebalancing turned into a jihad against all regulation, all taxes and all government, waged by right-wing zealots who want to privatize the public schools that educate your workers, cut back on the basic research on which your products are based, shut down the regulatory agencies that protect you from unscrupulous competitors and privatize the public infrastructure that transports your supplies and your finished goods. For them, this isn’t just a tactic to brush back government. It’s a holy war to destroy it — and one that is now out of your control.

 

For years you complained bitterly about the uncompetitive nature of an employer-based health-care system, the inexorable rise of health insurance premiums, the folly of medical malpractice and the unfair burden of having to subsidize the uninsured. But when your lobbyists and your bought-and-paid-for politicians had the chance to cut a deal that would have given you most of what you asked for, they walked away.

 

For years you complained bitterly about rising federal budget deficits and a corporate tax code that was too complex and burdensome. But when your crew had the chance to strike a grand bargain that would have fixed both those things, they not only rejected it but insisted on creating an unnecessary crisis that triggered a credit downgrade of U.S. Treasurys and a roller-coaster ride for stocks.

 

Please don’t tell me about your mealy-mouthed letter warning Congress not to play politics with the debt ceiling. By that point, the Frankenpols you created were not interested in your advice. The only thing that might have got their attention was a threat to cut off the flow of political money. You didn’t — and now they know they can ignore you with impunity.

 

I wonder how many of your fellow members of the Business Roundtable would accept a credible budget-balancing deal that had $10 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. My guess is they all would. And what about the presidential candidates in the new, improved Republican Party that you helped create? In last week’s Iowa debate, every last one of them promised to veto such a deal. Good luck with that!

 

Remember way back last fall when your big concern was with regulatory uncertainty, which you continue to use as the excuse for letting all those profits build up on your balance sheet rather than investing in equipment or hiring workers. Whatever uncertainty you can pin on the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress now looks like small potatoes given the uncertainty caused by your political shock troops as they challenge every new regulation all the way to the Supreme Court. They’ll try to prevent or roll back implementation of others with appropriations riders, just like they did with the Federal Aviation Administration — and we know how well that worked out.

 

In your name, they are also refusing to confirm nominees to dozens of key vacancies in the executive branch and independent agencies. Among them is President Obama’s choice for Commerce secretary, John Bryson, who for 18 years was chief executive of the largest electric utility in Southern California and served as a director at Boeing and Disney. His sin, apparently, is that he was co-founder of a respected environmental organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and — get this — actually believes the scientific community when it says global warming is a problem.

 

I can just hear it now: “Mr. Bryson, are you now, or were you ever, a member of an environmental organization?” How does it make you feel to know that you’ve helped to revive McCarthyism in American politics?

 

Your culpability, however, extends beyond the breakdown in Washington.

 

For the past 30 years, there has been a steady financialization of the American economy in which the interests of so-called shareholders have become the single-minded focus of large corporations, to the virtual exclusion of the interests of customers, employees and the society at large.

 

Early on, some of your predecessors were willing to put up a fight against the Wall Street cabal, but in time they bought you off with exorbitant perks and pay packages that nearly rival their own. This occupation of Main Street by Wall Street was confirmed again last week as anonymous traders and hedge fund managers went on a riotous spree, wielding false rumors and high-frequency computerized trading to loot pension and retirement accounts and rob consumers and real investors of whatever confidence they had left.

 

I suppose there are some schnooks who actually believe that those wild swings in stock prices last week represented sober and serious concerns by thoughtful, sophisticated investors about the Treasury debt downgrade or European sovereign debt or a slowdown in global growth. But surely such perceptions don’t radically change each afternoon between 2 and 4:30, when the market averages last week were gyrating out of control.

 

The only credible explanation for that is speculation, herd behavior and market manipulation by traders looking to make a quick million — financial wiseguys who could not care less what impact it might have on the real economy. And other than J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, I didn’t hear a peep of protest from you on CNBC, or a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago or even a simple letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal. A cameo appearance at the White House doesn’t quite cut it.

 

It’s not just that you have remained silent as the financial sector has sucked away much of the profit generated by the private sector, stolen away much of the nation’s best talent and transformed the process of capital allocation and formation into a casino. Even worse, through organizations such as the Chamber and the Business Roundtable you reflexively provided them with crucial political support that allowed them to beat back regulators who tried to restrict their growth, curb their risk-taking or put a stop to the kind of fraudulent activity that nearly sank the recovery, and from which it will take years to recover. Given your role in society and in the economy, your silence amounts to complicity.

 

The truth is you’ve become them. Instead of focusing your attention and ingenuity in developing new products and services, you’re spending most of your own time on financial engineering — buying up companies at one moment because of synergies and cost saving, then spinning them off the next moment because they no longer fall in to your “core mission.”

 

The big innovation at Kraft these days is to separate its over-processed food (Jell-O, Velveeta, Oscar Meyer) and unhealthy snacks (Cadbury chocolates, Oreo cookies, saltine crackers) into two companies.

 

Conoco-Phillips, which embraced hyphenation when it decided to merge into a vertically integrated oil company, has now decided that the world would be a better place if it spun off its refining and distribution business from exploration and drilling.

 

And let’s not forget Medco, the pharmacy benefit manager, which was bought and then spun off by Merck into an independent company again until it was scooped up by Express Scripts, one of its biggest competitors.

 

I’m not exactly sure how we’re going to generate more jobs and generate stronger growth in this country, but I’m fairly certain those kinds of bold initiatives aren’t going to do the trick.

 

Hey, but don’t worry about us. Enjoy that fly fishing in Montana. You deserve it.

[BigSqwert]

Somebody's Got to Save This Country From Certain Doom, And Let's Face It, That Person Is Me

 

Our country faces a moment of extreme crisis. We stand at the verge of an utter breakdown of our economy, our government, and our way of life. Democracy itself is at a crossroads, and without proper guidance, the United States of America will face grave times ahead. During this period of great tumult, someone needs to step in and fix these complex and enormous problems, and when it comes to the question of who is truly up to this task, I think we can all agree that person is—hands down and without question—me, Michele Bachmann.

 

Look at it logically for a minute. Of the 300 million people in the United States, who stands out as the one most capable of uniting a divided country and fixing a fractured Congress? Talk about a no-brainer. With my track record of urging white people to take back America, attending a church that believes the pope is the Antichrist, and advocating "conversion therapy" as a means to cure homosexuality, I'm clearly the only legitimate choice to become the next leader of the free world.

 

You know it and I know it.

 

It's just a plain and simple fact: When you close your eyes and think, "President of the United States of America," whose face immediately pops into your mind? Of course it's mine. After all, this is the face of a woman who instills confidence in the entire populace by having no understanding of basic American history and making a huge public outcry over a proposed change in lightbulbs.

 

We all know the outcome of this election is a foregone conclusion, and I personally wish we could just get it over with already so I could get to work abolishing the minimum wage and making sure public schools start teaching creationism.

 

Who, other than me, would you prefer to have leading high-level talks on the economy, or making the final decision as to whether or not the United States should invade another country? I certainly can't think of anyone else. Can you? Clearly, fixing the trade deficit, working with the president of China to foster a cordial, mutually beneficial relationship, and leading the strongest military on earth is what I was born to do. It's just so easy to picture me doing all those things. And while I admit there are some jobs I perhaps wouldn't be right for, I think we all agree what I can do is fix everything that is wrong with this country, all at once.

 

Let's look at the facts: I started my political career by praying on sidewalks and blocking women from entering abortion clinics. I have said on the floor of the House of Representatives that carbon dioxide is a "natural by- product of nature" and thus nothing to worry about. I've frequently misled voters about my family background, falsely claimed our health care system is the finest in the world, and suggested a McCarthy-esque witch hunt be conducted in order to root out members of Congress who are un-American.

 

If you weren't on board before reading those stellar credentials, do I even have to ask now? Just imagine a world in which I am the nation's 45th president. Doesn't that give you piece of mind and assurance that everything will finally be all right?

 

Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bachmann. Some things just make sense. Washington led this country to its independence. FDR guided the United States through the Great Depression and World War II. And I've suggested teachers could use The Lion King in their classrooms as an example of gay propaganda.

 

If anyone can bring dignity to the White House, I think we can unequivocally say it's me.

 

Picture it: It's late January, there's a joint session of Congress, and the House doorkeeper guy says the words, "Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States." Can you possibly conceive of anyone other than myself entering that chamber—the same place where Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the country after Pearl Harbor—and delivering the State of the Union, a speech listened to by the entire global community? Could there be any better signal to the rest of the world that the United States is a country to be taken seriously? And is there really anyone else you would rather have standing behind a podium reserved for the planet's most powerful human being?

 

That's what I thought.

[Rex Kickass]

http://bachmanneyezed.tumblr.com/

The premise of this blog is almost as absurd as her policy positions.

[Balta1701]

State & Local taxes...a huge difference in tax rates between the upper crust and everyone else (elderly excluded). The "Federal offset" is the fact that the IRS allows you to deduct state and local taxes.

[lostfan]

WaPo columnist Steve Pearlstein appears to have eaten his Wheaties over the weekend. Or something. Well, whatever it is, feed it to the rest of the media.

Well this is on point right here.

[Balta1701]

Fascinating poli-sci work that happened to interview its people in 2006, before the rise of the Tea Party, and just this year, after its rise, allowing it to see the makeup of the people who now call themselves Tea Partiers.

Beginning in 2006 we interviewed a representative sample of 3,000 Americans as part of our continuing research into national political attitudes, and we returned to interview many of the same people again this summer. As a result, we can look at what people told us, long before there was a Tea Party, to predict who would become a Tea Party supporter five years later. We can also account for multiple influences simultaneously — isolating the impact of one factor while holding others constant.

 

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

 

What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.

 

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? 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.

 

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

[NorthSideSox72]

Fascinating poli-sci work that happened to interview its people in 2006, before the rise of the Tea Party, and just this year, after its rise, allowing it to see the makeup of the people who now call themselves Tea Partiers.

One part of this is indeed fascinating - a very accurate look at what people who currently call themselves Tea Partiers (or those sympathetic to their causes), and what makes them different.

 

But the article also makes a completely bogus leap from the numbers to an obviously false conclusion. They can, and do, show what Tea Partiers ARE, but they make the laughable claim to say that means they know how the movement STARTED. They show zero evidence or research about the origins of the movement - only able to show what it has become, via the hop-on people.

 

Any statistician worth their salt could see this as being an improper use of the numbers to support an argument not represented in fact.

 

[Balta1701]

One part of this is indeed fascinating - a very accurate look at what people who currently call themselves Tea Partiers (or those sympathetic to their causes), and what makes them different.

 

But the article also makes a completely bogus leap from the numbers to an obviously false conclusion. They can, and do, show what Tea Partiers ARE, but they make the laughable claim to say that means they know how the movement STARTED. They show zero evidence or research about the origins of the movement - only able to show what it has become, via the hop-on people.

 

Any statistician worth their salt could see this as being an improper use of the numbers to support an argument not represented in fact.

Now wait just a second though. On here, I've argued quite consistently that the current "Tea Party" is nothing more than the activist, Fox-News led Republican base.

 

How it started, whether the first "Tea Party" was Ron Paul's 2008 campaign, Americans for Prosperity, whatever, if its supporters are overwhelmingly Republican, if the only people who consider themselves Tea Party supporters were activist Republicans in 2006, then that means that the "rise" of the Tea Party fits the narrative I've been writing...that the current "Tea Party" is nothing more than an activist Republican response to having a Democrat in the White House.

[NorthSideSox72]

Now wait just a second though. On here, I've argued quite consistently that the current "Tea Party" is nothing more than the activist, Fox-News led Republican base.

 

How it started, whether the first "Tea Party" was Ron Paul's 2008 campaign, Americans for Prosperity, whatever, if its supporters are overwhelmingly Republican, if the only people who consider themselves Tea Party supporters were activist Republicans in 2006, then that means that the "rise" of the Tea Party fits the narrative I've been writing...that the current "Tea Party" is nothing more than an activist Republican response to having a Democrat in the White House.

Current, yes. The people who jumped on the boat, yes. The origins - not at all supported by the numbers in this study.

 

[Balta1701]

Current, yes. The people who jumped on the boat, yes. The origins - not at all supported by the numbers in this study.

So, it's fair and now well supported statistically to say that the Tea Party is now overwhelmingly the activist, nativist Republican base, not some independent movement of outsiders, and no one will challenge me if I repeat that?

[NorthSideSox72]

So, it's fair and now well supported statistically to say that the Tea Party is now overwhelmingly the activist, nativist Republican base, not some independent movement of outsiders, and no one will challenge me if I repeat that?

Just my viewpoint, but I think it is fair to say that is the majority of that self-labeled group at this point, yes.

 

I saw an interesting article the other day too, that was another iterance of a poll they've taken periodically that included a question about how people feel about the Tea Party movement. Favorable numbers have started to decline, now in the 30's percentage-wise, which is interesting... but far more interesting is that the number of people unaware of the movement has fallen off a cliff, and apparently the great majority of those people went to the unfavorable side. Basically, as people learn more about it, they have less and less support.

 

If a far-right crazy like Bachmann wins the nomination, she will be completely unable to draw any moderates, swing voters or non-gutter independents. And she will therefore lose, and lose badly, in the general.

 

Romney is the most spineless of the GOP bunch, but he probably has the best chance in the general election.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

So, it's fair and now well supported statistically to say that the Tea Party is now overwhelmingly the activist, nativist Republican base, not some independent movement of outsiders, and no one will challenge me if I repeat that?

 

Because of the bandwagon people. When it started, and I mean when tea party rallies were just starting, it was not just the fringe, extremist republicans that it had become. It was essentially a bunch of libertarians, which of course would be predominantly conservative-minded.

 

As to NSS' point about the perception of the tea party, i'm guessing that has to do with how the media portrayed the group as a bunch of dumb racist rednecks. Most people don't like to associate with that kind of thing.

[Balta1701]

Because of the bandwagon people. When it started, and I mean when tea party rallies were just starting, it was not just the fringe, extremist republicans that it had become. It was essentially a bunch of libertarians, which of course would be predominantly conservative-minded.

 

As to NSS' point about the perception of the tea party, i'm guessing that has to do with how the media portrayed the group as a bunch of dumb racist rednecks. Most people don't like to associate with that kind of thing.

And I think the point the whole time is...if it was a handful of libertarians, it never would have had any impact. The only reason it made an impact on the politics of the country is that it attracted the activist, nativist, Fox News sponsored Republican base, who now are overwhelmingly the people who adopt that title. And if you look at the people who support the Tea Part or call themselves Tea Partiers now, they were all conservatives in 2006. There's no group of newcomers, outsiders, or anything wholly new to the movement, it's just active now because there's a Democratic president.

 

And it's right there in that data.