15 April 2010

Since I'm not being polled

And this appears to be an attempt to sample the Tea Party lets see what happens when the results come back to compare how "tea party am I?" I suspect the answer is probably something like "not very much, but sometimes". Especially based on this poll. Who the hell still thinks Bush was okay or that Obama wasn't born in America? I do agree that deficit reduction is more important than "creating jobs", but this is mostly because I know the government can do very little, if anything, to "create jobs" and less because I would (actually would not) agree that "tax cuts" are an effective means to reduce the deficit. I'm rather big on the whole "we need to cut spending" part of the equation. In rather nasty and unpopular ways like farm subsidies/department of agriculture, department of education, department of transportation, national security apparatus, defence, medicare, social security....

The fact that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are wildly popular amongst these folks tells me all I need to know that I should stay the hell away. Anti-intellectualism and ranting idiocy disguised as political wisdom works if you are a satirist (Colbert), but not if you're supposedly an influential member of a political movement.

Random demographic stuff
Male
25-34
White
College
Never
Something else
Someone else
Someone else

Options of stuff
1st one: 1st option "government doing too much"
2nd one: 2nd option "government should not promote any particular values"
priority: cut taxes and spending
all that apply:
want to send message to both parties (and... nothing else on that list).

Neither party

Who is the tea party politician?
Maybe Ron Paul. He's a lot more "conservative" than I am, so that's probably accurate since I perceive the average Tea Partier as much more conservative than I am, particularly on social and/or foreign policy issues.

How angry 1-5 (1 being meh and 5 being THOR ANGRY!)
National debt: 4 (this should be about where most of the county would poll though..)
Growth of govt: 3. It's been this big for a while. It's hard to get really annoyed at things that happened before you were born. Kind of like getting annoyed about the Crusades or the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (or the book for that matter).
Govt intrusion in personal lives: 5 (this should obvious)
Current tax levels: 2. Seems pretty low overall by our historical standards. Particularly with two wars. Some of the taxes are too high, others probably too low. I'd quit bitching about this if I were a Tea Partier and focus on the tax base and complexity issues instead of the amounts of taxation.
Moral direction of country (whatever that means): 1. I hate Paris Hilton or Britney Spears or whoever this Justin Bieber character is too, but there's always been a "Paris Hilton" in any society because the old hates whatever the young likes. They hated rap music when I was a kid, and rock music when they were kids, and jazz music when their grandparents were kids. When we don't have legalized slavery and systematic discrimination and women can vote and buy birth control instead being brood mares, seems like "moral direction" is kind of ambiguous but somewhat progressive. Move on, nothing to see here.
Terrorists in civilian courts: 1 (actually I am a "4-5" but angry that they are not being tried in civilian courts already rather than angry at the suggestion that we might or should)
Obama handling Afghanistan/Iraq: 3. Can't get too upset since he promised to send troops to Afghanistan even though I think/thought this was a stupid idea. Leaving Iraq (assuming that goes to plan) sort of cancels out the Afghanistan stuff for me. For now.
DC politicians: 3. No better or worse than any other politicians
Special interests influence: 4. They kind of cancel each other out, but occasionally get what they want despite popular or practical objections
Earmarks: 3 Annoying, but not a big deal. There's plenty of stuff we spend more money on that takes the form of earmarks in everything but the manner it is passed (farm subsidies for example).
Govt bailouts of private industry: 5
China: 1
Outsourcing: 1
Legal status to illegals: 1
Same sex marriage from courts: 2 I'd prefer to see this more from democratic support, but I realize we have some bigoted majorities still. The annoyance here is probably more that we don't have MORE courts or majorities that permit it. And baring that, that we have a default set of rules and privileges for marriage contracts anyway as set down by the STATE through courts or democratic majorities.
Abortions per year: 1. It's been going down for decades now anyway, certainly by rate. Even if this was a concern, its a diminishing one.
Restrictions on guns: 1. These seem to be getting nixed by court decisions anyway.
Stimulus bill: 3. I am more annoyed at the name and the distortions involved in it than the stuff they spent money on.
State govt, political leaders: 4. I live in a repressed state and should really consider moving to Colorado (or NH) it seems.
Environmentalists blocking oil: 1. Jeb Bush and state or local government does more to block oil exploration than environmentalists. Grow up.
Frivolous lawsuits: 3 Maybe would be more annoyed if I were more likely to get sued (ie, I was rich).
Most angry at: govt intrusion into private lives
Least angry at: anything with a 1 is very low on my ire scale. I guess China competition or outsourcing.
If elections today who would you vote for (includes a tea party candidate)
None of the above or don't know (I'm a strong "it depends" sort of person).
How well do these parties represent the views of Tea Party
Democrats: not at all
Republicans: very well rhetorically. Not so well literally
Libertarians: not so well rhetorically. Fairly well literally (sometimes unfortunately from my perspective).

Back in 2012?
Obama: maybe, leaning no. Not so much with the civil liberties campaign stuff that fell through almost immediately. And the whole protectionism and trade stuff.
Barbour: absolutely not
Cheney: I'd consider trying him for treason or high crimes. Does that count?
Daniels: leaning no
DeMint: No
Gingrich: NO
Huckabee: No
Palin: ahh, ha. NOOOO WAY
Paul: leaning no
Pawlenty: No
Perry: uh...NO
Romney: NO
Thune: no (I read politics all the time and even I don't have a fucking clue who this guy is other than that he's from the Dakotas... good sign or not?)

Who would you vote for, one choice only
Someone else: Johnson, Gary. Second choices might be: Paul Ryan or even Ron Wyden. Sadly I like a bunch of policy wonks who have no shot (and will probably never even run). Maybe better to keep them in the Senate or at the State level.

Obama is pursuing socialist agenda 1-5
2-3. Pretty much the same level of socialism as Bush. Corporatism mostly. Nothing to get in a fuss over all of the sudden.

Zip code: redacted
Income: redacted

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