By Barry Secrest

An Ideological Duel concerning Racism & The Tea Party...

 Excerpt:

For instance, in a 4/16/10  AP/GfK Poll the number of persons who generally agree with the premise of the Tea Party Movement amounts to 33% of all voters.  While in a  March Rasmussen Poll, the question, phrased a bit differentially, indicates that a significant number of Americans--52%--believe that the average Tea Party member has a better understanding of the issues facing the average American than the average member of Congress, which would imply an overall acceptance, if not support, of the Tea Party when one looks at the 17% Congressional approval numbers according to another CBS/New York Times poll.

The point here would be that we actually have no true idea of how many people "support" the Tea Party Movement in all the various degrees that the word "support" encompasses.  The percentages start at 18% and run to a possible 52%, if not more.  Pitts goes on to state that, according to the poll, Tea Party supporters tend to be White, Republican males over the age of 45 and wealthier "than the rest of us."  Here Pitts is rather impishly setting up an "Us against Them" scenario by implying that ALL Tea Party members are wealthy, middle-aged  Republicans (who are favorable towards  George W. Bush-- as if that is an oddity) and lastly are apart from Mr. Pitts himself.....

End Excerpt..

Liberal

Leonard Pitts

Conservative

Barry Secrest

The Politics of Crying Racism: Rebuttal to Leonard Pitts "Teasing out the Roots of the Tea Party Ire"