What the Tea Party is – and isn't

Dan Balz reports on the Tea Party movement's dwindling levels of influence within both GOP and wider political circles, while also giving further evidence to support the view that its members are predisposed to criticize Obama and other figures on the left. He writes:

Over the past three decades, the size of the base within the party has grown significantly. At the same time, those activists were becoming more and more conservative in their views — and more and more hostile in their evaluations of the opposing party. When these activists were asked to rate Democratic presidential candidates on a thermometer scale of 1 to 100, the average fell “from a lukewarm 42 degrees in the late 1960s to a very chilly 26 degrees in the 2000s,” Abramowitz said.

In other words, the Republican base was primed to dislike Obama as president. In fact, it already did before he was ever sworn in. “People attending the tea party events that began early in the Obama administration expressed the same vehement hostility toward Obama first observed at campaign rallies for John McCain and Sarah Palin” in the fall of 2008, writes Gary Jacobson of the University of California at San Diego.

You might be aware that I've never considered myself much of a fan; it strikes me as little more than a weak entente of losers hallmarked by delusions of grandeur and unrestrained self-imagined importance, when, in fact, their scope and sphere of influence stretches no further than their own living rooms. Loud, but not important – there's a difference, you know. Too far right for my tastes. All noise and no manners.