TEA Parties: THE AMERICAN MEDIA LIES!

Even, for Christ's sake, the Los Angeles Times is forced to admit:

For upwards of 12 months now members of the so-called Tea Party protest movement have been stereotyped, derogated and often dismissed by some politicians and media outlets.

They've been portrayed variously as angry fringe elements, often inarticulate, potentially violent and merely Republicans in sheep's clothing or disgruntled pockets of conservatives blindly lashing out at a left-handed President Obama and the same side of his Democratic Party finally getting its chance to drive home a liberal agenda after eight years of Republican rule and six under a centrist Bill Clinton.

Alas for stereotypes, they're convenient, often catchy. But not necessarily true.

Now, comes a pair of polls, including Gallup, that paint a revealing detailed portrait of Tea Party supporters in most ways as pretty average Americans.

A Sunday poll -- actually three national phone surveys of 1,000 registered voters -- found that 17% of all polled, or more than 500, called themselves "part of the Tea Party movement."

Gallup says:

28% support the TEA Parties, 26% oppose.

38% are unpersuaded.

8% have no opinion.

What does that say? That there are a massive amount of persons to be persuaded by our TEA Parties, if we can "do it right"!!

Further:

Uniformly Negative Reaction to Health Bill:

Over the past year, Tea Party movement activists -- originally kindled by grass-roots opposition to the economic stimulus bill and taxpayer bailouts of homeowners -- came out strongly against the Democrats' national healthcare reform plans. That stance is evident in the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, in which 87% of Tea Party supporters -- versus 50% of all Americans -- say they consider passage of healthcare reform a bad thing.

Further, from FoxNews

Tea Partiers have been dismissed as a fringe, but two new polls suggest the conservative movement might be going mainstream.

A Rasmussen poll released Monday found more Americans identify with the Tea Party groups than with President Obama.

According to the survey, 48 percent of voters said the average Tea Party activist is more aligned with their views on major issues than the president. Forty-four percent said Obama's views are closer to theirs.

That came on top of a USA Today/Gallup poll that found more than a quarter of Americans affiliate themselves with the Tea Party movement.

The poll of 1,033 adults, conducted March 26-28, found 28 percent of people call themselves Tea Party supporters, while 26 percent call themselves opponents.

The survey also found that Tea Party supporters are not disproportionately dominated by any one demographic group. The characteristics of Tea Party supporters -- in age, education, income and race -- roughly follow the characteristics of the nation as a whole.

So. You and your neighbors think TEA Party members and advocates are The Fringe?

You couldn't be more wrong.

TEA Partiers are MAINSTREAM AMERICANS.

BZ