President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
December 07, 2009 10:55 PM UTC
15 Comments
One explanation that came to mind was that the poll didn’t really go into specifics of what the Tea Party platform would involve–just that they were another potential party to vote for. In generic ballots, voters tend to favor what they see as an outsider perspective, especially in off-year elections.
If independent voters find out what exactly the Tea Party platform would entail, they might not be as willing to support a third party.
One thing this tells me is that Republicans will be desperate to paint themselves as Tea Partiers if they see this poll as gospel. I would like to see other polling outfits ask questions like these before I jump to any conclusions on 2010 Republicans branding themselves as Tea Party candidates.
Locally, Jane Norton and Scott McInnis have both been trying to brand themselves as Tea Party candidates, though, so it might already be happening.
public education and eliminating civics courses allows for ignorance to rear its head in the form of the Tea baggers.
good diary, and it shows the dangers of an angry uniformed public –
think Germany in the 30s
Wade, you have this tendency to blow things WAY OUT OF PROPORTION. We have politicians tell the electorate what they think they want to hear. That’s called democracy and it won’t always go your way.
It’s not the advent of fascism.
i mean, obviously it would take a movement of media personalities demanding birth certificates from our President or billboards comparing our President to a Jihadist to justify my first statement.
Oh, right, we already have that.
thanks for cussing me out.
This is how politics has always been played in this country. It’s a contact sport, but that does not mean we’re facing anything more than the democratic process.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING…
my concern is that the gov of Texas and the ex gov of Alaska (and de-facto tea party leader) have made secessionist statements.
sleep much?
A large number of voters are fed up with the government. They see all the problems we face, and the government appears unable to improve it. People don’t feel it’s “their” government anymore.
To Obama’s credit, I think he is trying hard to address this. But it will take a lot of effort, and time.
And while the Bush deserves a lot of the blame for this state, we Dems deserve a fair share too. You look at D.C. where the large banks were covered to the point that they have their bonuses back – but unemployment stays over 10%. That does not show a government looking out for its own people.
The thing is, a lot of the tea party support is a pox on both your houses. But once they learn what the alternative is, most voters will go running back to the devil they know.
Ross Perot got a lot of interest, but he never had a prayer of winning.
however what I find distressing is that this dissatisfaction (which is quite reasonable in many respects) is pushing people towards an extremist wing of the political spectrum. True, I don’t agree with Wade that this is the start of nazism all over again, but I don’t believe that these people don’t know what the alternative is either. They were asked if they would support a Tea Party candidate vs. a Democrat and Republican — don’t tell me that people don’t know what the Tea Party refers to or what they stand for, they have gotten a shit-ton of media coverage this year, and their message is pretty simple.
In their frustration, people are turning to an ideology that is not only stupid and incoherent, but extremist in its tendencies. This is not only a sad reflection on the quality of the electorate, but also troublesome to think that these are the specific voters that candidates will have to be woo-ing in the year to come. Placating the tea baggers? No thanks.
–Severe economic dislocation as a result of profound failures of capitalism; no way to get around that!
–Many middle class people feeling they are in danger of losing their positions. Not just the unemployed, but people who see their neighbors unemployed, people whose houses have fallen in value what, 30%? 40% in some cases, and all, or much, of whose capital has gone literally poof! And it ain’t comin’ back, brothers. Baby boomers retire; sell houses. Ain’t no one there to take up the slack! You mean all that work, those debts, and we’re still proletarians?
–ON TOP of which is the coming-home-to-roost of some long-term trends: aging industrial plant; deindustrialization, which leaves what as the economic engine? Services? The end of the era of American military superiority–didn’t protect us from 9/11, can’t defeat the Taliban (!), can’t rub out Al Qaeda. Military prowess gone? What does it mean, anyway? We could still defeat the Red Army, but not the Taliban? That’s a bigger-than-average shock to a nation’s ego and self-image. Is it comparable to losing the Great War? TBD.
–Environment. Now they’re telling us we can’t buy an SUV like we’ve always wanted, can’t drive to work, can’t eat big hamburgers cause they’re bad for us AND we’re too fat…. And our water is poisonous.
–Does it seem to anyone else on this site that American society is showing real signs of basic failure to come to grips with, say, the health care of the people? From a cost and availability point of view? Are people confident that the education system is producing citizens informed about the past, capable of analyzing issues on the basis of data, hell, READING directions?
Historical parallels are never exact, of course! That doesn’t mean there aren’t recurring patterns. Fascism was rooted in the notion that none of this was the fault of the victims (and it wasn’t). Convenient causi collapsus were identified. What’s disturbing this year is (a) the confluence of issues; (b) the fact that the crisis seems to have spilled over previous limits (“the Great Recession”); (c) problems stretch far into the future; and (d) many “middle class” people may feel their stake is at risk as a result of all this coming at the same time. It’s this fear, and the appeal of entirely irrational answers and approaches, such as advocated by the Tea Partiers, that is disturbing on a scale that I, at least, haven’t seen before.
Between civil rights, feminism, and the anti-war protests many thought the country was spiraling out of control. Change is messy. What’s different here is the most visible fringe groups are ones you strongly disagree with.
We do face a lot of issues. But we’re also stepping up to address them. As Jon Stewart put it so eloquently last week – this country is very strong & sturdy. We’ll make it through, and can then tell our grand-kids about how we lived through a key part of our history (and boy will they be bored).
Don’t you guys think the populism used by the “Kingfish” is ripe for exploitation? As I mentioned in an earlier thread, there is more distance vertically in our society than there is laterally, I believe.
The job of sowing mistrust of the corporate aristocracy was just about cemented by Bushco, Inc. All the enterprising politician needs to do now is to get the conservative poor and the liberal poor to stop fighting and …voila!
or not.
Don’t forget…the Cold War is over. “Them” is now”us”.
The changes of the ’60s were primarily cultural. Even so, you had Chicago ’68.
What’s different today (seems to me) is the economic element. Some people in the South in the ’60s –whites at the bottom of the economic ladder who feared competing on an equal footing with blacks –were indeed reactionaries. Still are. But for the broad “middle class” (aka working people living in their own houses in suburbs), there was no imminent economic threat in the 60s.
The megaeconomic situation today is quite different, which is why I draw the comparison to the ’30s. People then were losing their economic floors, just as many fear doing today. (Fear? Many have lost their grip on the ladder!) Sally Silly at Six would have us believe that a slowing rate of growing unemployment means everything is okay; updates at 10. Not so.
For the half-empty, half-full argument (“We are solving our problems.” “Are not!” “Are so!”) I’d say it’s a question of perception–and that is precisely the issue I’m raising: Is there a substantial portion of the middle- to lower-middle class white population that fears we are NOT solving problems, especially THEIR problems, their ECONOMIC problems most especially of all.
And, per dukeco1 below, I do indeed see the Kingfish element at work: a campaign, mostly on the corporatist right, to redirect attention from the mega-issues arising from the deindustrialization of America (“better margins on foreign production”) to cultural issues and completely phony, irrelevant, and downright dangerous non-solutions, such as “cut taxes and all will be well.”
In times like these, there are false alarmists and Cassandras. Trouble is, we don’t know which is which until afterwards.
is called for.
For those who are complacent about our stability in the face of such normal democratic rumblings, bear in mind that the one constant of history is change: Forms of government, and political states constituted in a particular way do not tend to endure indefinitely. Changes occur both gradually, and abruptly upon arrival at certain kinds of thresholds, and there is no basis for assuming that neither of these can be occuring in the United States, in ways which merit concern.
For those who are overwrought by this movement and its popularity, remember that a liberal Democrat just won a presidential election by a large majority, that the Democrats are in control of both Houses and the executive branch, and that there does not appear to be much evidence that the Teabaggers are on the verge of taking over the nation. I think they are a noxious element in our cultural and political system, are an obstructionist force which will drag down attempts at progress that serves our collective welfare, and can conceivably eventually pose a real danger to the continued survival of the United States as we know it. But I do not see any evidence of extreme imminent danger being posed by them at this point.
The best we can do is to continue to fight irrationality with reason, belligerence with good will, indifference with compassion, and be highly motivated and determined in our efforts to define the direction this country takes.