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political ideology?

What is the political ideology of the Tea Party?--69.165.131.155 (talk) 05:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

• Conservative, although organizations with other ideologies (like the LaRouche Movement) have attempted to find common grounds with the Tea Party movement and have attended their protests. Stonemason89 (talk) 15:54, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

• Republican?! BigK HeX (talk) 17:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

• Yep, very conservative on the fiscal issues. And sometimes Libertarian, but they will protest government spending and then go to the mailbox to collect their Social Security check and they say things like, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare," without seeming to connect where Medicare/Social Security comes from.Malke2010 20:50, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Considering most, if not all, have paid into SS and Medicare this is not really much of a contridiction. Arzel (talk) 16:43, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

interesting article

. Malke2010 17:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I see that you eliminated my point that the Tea Party Movement is corporate supported on the evidence it has never criticized the Supreme Court decision affirming unlimited corporate funding of political campaigns; you call my point "tendentious" and ask for a source. There cannot be a source for this; it is based on the fact the nowhere in the Tea Party literature is there ever a criticism of said Supreme Court decision, a criticism which indeed would be expected if the Tea Party Movement truly represented 'the people'. My statement is a fair one on the evidence or rather lack of same. Alloco1 (talk) 21:34, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Another editor deleted your post because it doesn't have a source. That's called original research. If you have a citation from one of these that shows that the TPM is corporate supported and that the reason there is no mention/criticism of the Supreme Court decision in TPM literature is because of this corporate sponsorship, then go ahead and put it in the article.Malke2010 00:06, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Alloco! Thanks for your contribution to Misplaced Pages! Unfortunately, in addition to the comment regarding your original research above, your addition fails even a basic logic test. You claim a failure on the Tea Party's part to object to the Supreme Court decision "affirming unlimited corporate funding of political campaigns" should result in the conclusion that the Tea Party is "corporate supported". The good folk at PETA and the crusaders of "Whale Wars" failed to publicly condemn the Supreme Court's decision also. Does this make them corporate supported? I appreciate the effort you put into this, but just follow NAACP lead and stick to claims of racism, it is a more reliable way to attack these guys. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.62.114.250 (talk) 01:52, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Early Local Protests

I added the first *actual* known Tea Party of 2009 in protest of bigger government. Is it necessary to link to every reference and relevant news source that picked it up? I added one link to a local news station, but a quick search of the "Binghamton Tea Party" yields many more. Also in regards to it gaining momentum - I linked to a Campaign for Liberty blog post which discusses the Tax Day Coalition which formed as a result. (This comprised over over 2 dozen organizations, including FreedomWorks, which half of the citations here come from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.34.96.153 (talk) 12:47, 13 July 2010 (UTC) this article should be locked or marked as biased. preferably locked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.18.166.162 (talk) 07:26, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Other U of W study

I removed the other University of Washington study for several valid reasons. One, this study was limited to a population of only the greater Seattle area, as such it is only valid for the residents of Seattle and Puget Sound. It is no way representative of the view of the Tea Party in general. Because of this the study if undue weight within the scope of the section. All, except the other U of W study, are national polls and can be said to be a fair representation of the national view of the Tea Party movement, this one cannot. Additionally, this study has recieved almost no press outside a few left-leaning outlets like HuffPo, as such it is of questionable NPOV value. That section is already quite large, so one has to ask why should a limited poll which cannot be used to define the broader view of the Tea Party Movement be included in the section. Arzel (talk) 16:04, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I have a few questions regarding your reasoning behind proposing the removal of that content. All of the studies cited in this Misplaced Pages article are "limited". I don't recall a poll ever being taken of every US citizen about any issue. You say this particular study was limited to just Seattle, but I don't see that mentioned in the cited sources -- not that it would make a difference if it were; I'm fairly certain that Seattle residents are citizens, and that some of them are indeed tea party supporters and thus qualify as a representative sample. Additionally, the poll has been covered in reliable sources; perceived "leanings" of "outlets" does not make facts less factual. Finally, your complaint that the content was added by an "Anon" (see your edit summary) doesn't strike me as a valid reason for anything. With the few exceptions that edit using their complete legal names, every editor of Misplaced Pages is "Anon", and that has no bearing on the acceptability of article content we produce. Xenophrenic (talk) 17:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you can wait until this is discussed before reinserting. This study was limited to residents of greater Seattle, as such it is not representative of the Tea Party as a whole. It is one thing to include a national poll that is a representative sample of the entire country, even the other UW study was at least a multi-state poll, this wasn't even a poll of the entire state of Washington, mostly limited to one county in one state. I ask you how anything from this poll can be applied to the nation as a whole? This study was put into the article by a Anon over the 4th holiday with no comments. As such it was put in without any discussion, and given the misleading insertion it is fully within the rights of anyone to remove misleading information. Now, if you want to discuss how this very limited study is relevant to the whole movement go right ahead. Arzel (talk) 21:02, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Arzel, please provide the "proof" that this study was "limited to residents of greater Seattle." Thank you.--AzureCitizen (talk) 21:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that the U of W doesn't do a better job of stating the methdology. Here is one article talking about the poll (it was actually a poll about something else) Here is the actual poll, which is apparently the whole state of Washington, not just the Greater Seattle area, I had seen some reporting on the Seattle breakout before. It is not expressly stated, but it is only a Washington State poll, and therefore undue weight for the scope of this article. Arzel (talk) 21:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for responding. My own (brief) examination of the sources led me to conclude it is a poll of 1,695 Washington state registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3%. It would probably be undue weight for the poll to appear the way it was expressed previously, which might lead one to believe that it was a national poll. There is a simple compromise solution for this, however. Instead of stating the poll as:

"University of Washington According to a University of Washington poll published on June 2, 2010:"

...a more accurate and acceptable wording would be:

"University of Washington According to a University of Washington poll of registered voters in the State of Washington, published on June 2, 2010, with a sample size of 1,695 individuals and a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percent:"

In this fashion, the reader can make the decision for themselves and assign whatever weight they care to assign to the poll's significance. --AzureCitizen (talk) 21:46, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a perfectly acceptable suggestion. I've incorporated some of your suggestions; let me know what you think. Xenophrenic (talk) 18:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. This article is about the movement as a whole. There are several national polls which we could include, and previously were included only to be removed because of weight issues. I don't see why we would have removed previous national polls for brevity only to include narrow specific polls which don't represent the movement as a whole. What makes this poll more important than the other national polls that have since been removed? Arzel (talk) 23:08, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Which national polls were removed for weight issues? --AzureCitizen (talk) 00:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't have time to go through the whole history right now, but I know that there has been some information removed for weight concerns. I would ask you again, why include a state specific poll that is not representative of the movement as a whole? This is not an article about the Tea Party Movement in Washington, perhaps state specific articles should be created rather than try to shoehorn limited scope information into the national view. Arzel (talk) 13:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Why do you assume the polling data is not relative to the TP movement as a whole, and is only about "the Tea Party Movement in Washington"? I don't see that expressed in any of the cited sources. In fact, from the very link you just provided:

"Similar to nationwide numbers, about 20 percent of registered voters in Washington state identify themselves as strong supporters of the Tea Party movement. University of Washington Professor and pollster Matt Barreto decided to delve into the social and political opinions of that 20 percent."

Are the TPers from Washington a special "fringe" subset that we should know about? The sample sets used by all polling organizations have limitations and defining parameters, whether it is "only people from this state" or "only people from these 11 states" or "only registered voters" or "only people that answer phone calls between 6PM and 8PM", etc. Given this fact, we can discredit any poll we disapprove of based on its limitations. But we shouldn't; instead, please cite reliable sources that explain why this or that poll is inaccurate or flawed. Xenophrenic (talk) 18:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I never said it was inaccurate or flawed. I am sure it is a valid representation of the residents of Washington. However, that does not mean it is a valid representation of the nation as a whole. National polls are Stratified by state, population centers, race, gender, ect in order to get a representative view of the nation as a whole. This was a big part of the problem with the previous UW poll, but at least that poll had the benefit of being a multistate poll from battleground states. This is from a highly blue state not known to be very representative of the US as a whole. Arzel (talk) 13:26, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. Can you provide a citation to point me to this information? Xenophrenic (talk) 19:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I recall removing some of the oldest polls, can't tell you when. This movement seems to be ever-evolving and the most mainstream and recent should be covered. I hate to pick on the smaller and marginal polls, but the section is a bit large and should be limited to more established polling such as Gallop, Rasmussen, NYT/CBS. †TE†Talk 16:14, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The poll discussed above is actually bigger than the NYT/CBS, Gallop, etc., polls in the article, and has the distinction of focusing on specific and relevant fields not covered by more general polls. That aside, I'm all for concise but complete article content, as long as we are applying that standard evenly across all content -- I see sections far more deserving of the knife. Xenophrenic (talk) 18:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

How can you make that distinction? Because the sample size is large? Do you know anything about polling? Polls are only a valid representation of the population from which they were sampled. This continued attempt to use limited polls to paint the group as a whole is very disengenious to say the least. Please provide a valid reason why a poll specific to one state is relevent to discussion of the group as a whole. As for the residents of Washington, I don't recall that state every being used as a bellweather state for polling purposes. Arzel (talk) 12:59, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Do I know anything about polling? That isn't really relevant; the content I add (or restore) comes from reliable sources, not my own reservoir of knowledge on particular subjects. All polls are limited, including each of those cited in this article. One is limited to a registered group of preselected, paid poll-takers with internet access, instead of random participants. Another poll is limited to only those that will sit through an automated, computerized questionnaire on the phone. I could easily cite the limited scope of any poll that I wished to discredit, if I were so inclined -- but I prefer to leave those evaluations to reliable sources. So tell me, is there a reliable source that says the poll we are discussing is not relevant to the TP movement? The sources cited thus far indicate it is relevant. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Huffpo? Haha, yeah that is clearly an unbiased source. The other is the Seattle Times, and given the poll was in Washington this hardly suprising. You can't prove a negative, so why do you try to prove the positive? Arzel (talk) 04:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. At least with this poll we have a good idea of its scope and limitations. The arguments about Washington being "blue" or not "bellwether" are specious: we have no sources correlating these with the poll. (And the second is Just Made Up.) The poll data should stay. PhGustaf (talk) 20:14, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You know it is very hard to take other editors remarks seriously when they obviously fail to even go to the link that I included. Our very own article on bellweather clearly notes which states are bellweather states, Washington is not one of them. Washington is also clearly not a red state, therefore by simply ellimination it is a blue state. Arzel (talk) 04:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I say leave it, at least for now. I don't condone the edit warring instead of standard BRD procedure, though (Arzel was not the BOLD, he was the REVERT). There are more pressing issues with the section, weight being one of them. And not just undue section weight compared to rest of the article, but also undue weight among the different polls themselves. Now we've added another WISER poll, does Gallup get another? Is Gallup being underrepresented compared to the others? Why doesn't Gallup get bullet points? How should we decide what is bullet point worthy? Should we use only the most recent polls? Mainstream? Also, are they being used to insert POV, be it good or bad depending on the editors intentions? So many questions. †TE†Talk 01:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I bulleted all of them that could be bulleted. I think it would be difficult to pick which should and which should not without bringing in POV issues. Either they all should or all should not. As for your second question, Yes, they clearly are being used to present the POV meme that the Tea Party movement is racist. About a third of the section is focused not on the demographics of the movement, but the supposed racist nature of the movement. In reality though, this article is mostly focused on the fringe elements of the movement as a way to denigrate the movement as a whole. But then that is common with WP pages. Arzel (talk) 04:57, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Very onesided

This article seems extremely biased in favor of the tea party movement. I see no images of the hundreds of recorded racist signs and slogans or the various audio available of racial slurs being used in chants. This article is vary hush hush on the darker side of this movement. There is also no mention in this article of any of the arrests of tea party members for assault or harassment. There is little mention of the tea party's collaboration with scientology, or any mention of the ludicrous amounts of money scientology has given the tea party. Misplaced Pages is way better then this and is by their own words committed to neutrality and this article is just anything but neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.159.28 (talk) 23:33, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe because they don't exist??? Andrew Breibart has offered a $10,000 reward for hard evidence of the alleged "racist slogans" and so far nobody has collected. Breitbart's article exposing the race baiting tactics you are espousing, and his announcement of the reward can be found here: 2010: A Race Odyssey - Disproving a Negative for Cash Prizes, or How the Civil Rights Movement Jumped the Shark

If you have hard evidence, you can make yourself a cool 10 grand...DrHenley (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC).

henley are you for real? Really? no racist slogans? Have you actualy been to one of these events or god forbid did a image search?

http://washingtonindependent.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/teapartypic.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRJ2UmyHhxI http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/14/tea-party-racism/

There I would like my "cool 10 grand" Or was that part of your pathetic attempt to troll this article as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.159.28 (talk) 01:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

http://thinkingmeat.net/wp-content/uploads/teapartysign1sm.jpg Here is another racist sign, calling obama a monkey. My argument is that because the over whelming majority of the tea party has rather extreme and often racist and hateful slogans, there should at least be mention of that in the article. This article reads like its heavily policed by actual tea party people, much like the scientology article was very one sided before people started to take notice. I am not saying this article is of the same magnitude, however I am saying if somebody who knows little about the tea party where to read this article they would still not know very much about what they really are. The whole anti-tax stuff they go on about despite the fact that 90% of them are in a tax bracket that has the most tax cuts BECAUSE of obama. That is something worth mentioning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.159.28 (talk) 14:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

This is one of the most incendiary that I've seen. (Picture is uncensored on this site.) BigK HeX (talk) 05:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Right, that's one illiterate and racist bastard. Why is he on this talk page? Hate to point out the obvious, but every organization or movement has uneducated racists. Hell, sometimes they're well-educated (I live near a popular Black Liberation Theology church on the south side of Chicago). Anyways, I hope we're not pushing inclusion in some way (guessing if the photo was not already copyrighted, it would be here). We should try not to deface halfway decent wiki articles for kicks, or POV. Don't you agree? †TE†Talk 06:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

"Deface"? Even ignoring WP:NOT#CENSORED, are you trying to say that apparent racist themes within the Tea Party haven't been a notable part of the Tea Party coverage??? BigK HeX (talk) 07:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm just saying that our profound knowledge shouldn't be used to disparage organizations and/or movements. Apparent racist themes can be found in any and all of them. Call it lazy, call it ethical, but I don't think we should focus on it. Whatever you believe it is, we should avoid it for the sake of the project. Like I said before, I have somewhat personal knowledge on articles that I've never touched. Imagine if I did. Imagine 10 more people lacking my restraint. Do you think[REDACTED] would be better off? I don't think so. †TE†Talk 07:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

What became of Dick Armey discussion?

A couple of weeks ago the main article included an informative description of the role in creating the Tea Party of Dick Armey, his Freedomworks organization, plus other other professional lobbying companies and foundations. What became of that discussion?

If someone objects to the discussion, let them refute it.Tldoran (talk) 15:52, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Questions

I have 2 questions:

• Why are there 4 different Tea Party Articles on Misplaced Pages? Can someone clarify that?
  • e.g. Boston Tea Party (political party), Tea Party movement, Tea Party protests and List of Tea Party protests
• Does this article have enough poll statistics or do we need more of them?

Noha307 (talk) 20:19, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

More statistics. Given the current standard for inclusion then none can be left out. Arzel (talk) 13:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Breitbart's 48-second "no slurs" video

This block of text has see-sawed back and forth between being deleted and re-inserted (in more or less similar versions) by contributors here:

Breitbart also posted a mislabeled 48-second video of the Congressional Black Caucus members on the day in question, though later analysis revealed that the video was not of Lewis and Carson walking to the Capitol, when the slurs were reportedly heard, but instead showed the lawmakers leaving the Capitol — at least one hour after the reported incident. When asked about using the video from the wrong moment on his website, Breitbart stood by his claim that the lawmakers were lying. "I'm not saying the video was conclusive proof," he said.

In the interest of working this out through talk page discussion rather than through reverts and edit summaries, let's discuss it here. Is this paragraph relevant to the controversy over what happened? If it is, does it present an accurate picture of what happened? --AzureCitizen (talk) 15:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I assume it's important to some more than others. I've never really seen anyone push for it, unless, Breitbart was added first. It always went Breitbart first, then an editor responds with Trumka and 48 second clip. It's always not NPOV and always is undue weight.' After long and annoying edit warring, all mention of Breitbart disappears. It won't be long until someone adds that Breitbart has obtained 3-4 videos of when the slurs are said to have occurred. He was on Hannity recently with the videos looping from the different angles. †TE†Talk 16:45, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

• Apparently Carson fanned the flames a bit when he said this: "Andrew Breitbart has tried everything possible to try and rewrite history related to the events of that day—including citing as proof a video that was shot a full hour after the incident happened." Which gave Breitbart a chance to roll out a compilation of 5 different videos showing Carson, Lewis, and his chief of staff leaving the Cannon building and crossing Independence Ave. Also gave them the chance to go after Cleaver, who originally said that he was with them and heard the slurs, directly contradicting Carson's detailed account and the videos obtained. Just when you thought this was over and done with... †TE†Talk 18:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems self-evident that the video is part of Breitbart's claims WRT to the controversy. BigK HeX (talk) 16:52, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I concur. †TE†Talk 18:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Here's to hoping for "further developments". Or should we not allow any more updating of the section because these new developments happened 4 months after the initial reports? Or just a couple weeks after the initial reports - an objection I've read in the edit summaries recently? My opinion has been the same throughout: If Breitbart's assertion that slurs never happened, and are just an intricately planned fabrication on the part of Pelosi+Congressional Black Caucus+Media, then every significant and relevant detail needs to be included. Xenophrenic (talk) 04:56, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Political class?

In the data for the Rasmussen poll, it says "87% of members of the political class felt closer to Obama." Can someone who knows what "political class" means in this context clarify this a bit, or provide a reasonable definition so I can do it? This sounds like conservative jargon, which often has a meaning very different from accepted usage... (edit to add) I know Rasmussen is often loose with the wording of their poll questions, so I expect this is the wording they used, but as it is it's pretty indecipherable and useless to most readers. DigitalHoodoo (talk) 20:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

You wikilinked to it, so it would seem you already know what it is. It is not conservative jargon, it is simply people that follow politics closely. Arzel (talk) 22:52, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

1. Wrong Video of Health Protest Spurs N-word Feud Guardian News; April 13, 2010
2. Hoft, Jim (April 13, 2010). "Anything To Slander the Tea Partiers: AP Invents Phantom White Man Who 'Heard' Slur". Big Journalism. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

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