Tea party poll shows great divide between ‘Political Class’ and ‘Mainstream’
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 10:24AM A new Rasmussen poll said 51 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the tea parties held nationwide last week, including 32% who say their view of the events is very favorable. The poll said 33 percent view the tea parties unfavorably and 15 percent weren’t sure. But when respondents were categorized by class, the figures were more startling. Rasmussen said, “While half the nation has a favorable opinion of last Wednesday’s events, the nation’s Political Class has a much dimmer view—just 13% of the political elite offered even a somewhat favorable assessment while 81% said the opposite. Among the Political Class, not a single survey respondent said they had a very favorable opinion of the events while 60% shared a very unfavorable assessment.” There is in fact a wide gap between the Political Class and Mainstream on a number of issues.
Rasmussen says Mainstream and Political Class respondents are established for polling purposes by answering a set of questions—who the respondent trusts more (the people or political leaders), whether the federal government is a special interest group, and whether government and big business work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors. A score is assigned for each answer. The Political Class falls in a range of scores of -2 or less while Mainstream respondents are defined by agreeing with mainstream view on at least 2 of 3 questions and not agreeing with the political class on any questions.
Some leftwing extremist celebs, presumably Political Class types, called tea party goers “racist” and a few like one comedian on MSNBC had a field day making adolescent jokes about the term ‘teabagging.’
