Prop 23 Faces Uphill Climb, Despite Push from Tea Party

October 22, 2010

With less than two weeks remaining before California voters decide the fate of Prop 23, opposition organizers believe they may have have finally gained the upper hand in the battle over whether or not to suspend the state’s landmark AB 32 greenhouse gas emissions law.

According to several recent polls, support has been waning for the ballot initiative. A Public Policy Institute of California survey completed earlier this week has the measure losing by 48-37 percent, with 15 percent still undecided.

What’s more, thanks to a late push from a coalition of conservation groups, green energy interests and celebrity environmentalists, the No on 23 campaign now has significantly more money to play with in its efforts to win over those remaining undecided voters. According to mandatory state financial disclosure laws, the Yes on 23 movement now trails its opposition by a ratio of nearly three to one in total funds.

Over the past three weeks, supporters of the bill have contributed less than $800,000 to the campaign—a figure that was surpassed by a singular $1 million contribution from director James Cameron last week. In all, “big green” has raised at least $28 million to defeat the measure, with Big Oil and its allies managing to collect just $9 million.

Money from much-maligned “out-of-state oil interests” like Valero and Tesoro appears to have dried up, with other oil companies thus far refusing to join the fight. Meanwhile, the Koch brothers—whose virtually limitless supply of money has helped to finance right-wing activists ranging from the Tea Party movement to the Cato Institute—appear to have moved on as well.

Though any of these wealthy backers might decided to help fund a late push, for now it appears that the Yes on 23 campaign made its last major media buy earlier this week, when it purchased $2 million in television spots that will air in the greater Los Angeles area between now and election day.

Reading the Tea Leaves

But despite diminishing funds and a growing deficit in the polls, the Yes on 23 campaign does appear to have one major edge over its opposition leading into November: Conservatives are thought to be far more enthusiastic about voting this year than their moderate and liberal counterparts.

And in recent primaries throughout the country, those voters have been resilient if not hostile to the GOP establishment—rendering opposition to the measure from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman relatively meaningless in its influence on many right-leaning voters.

Like most elections, the fate of Prop 23 will most likely be decided by who shows up to vote. If turnout is moderate-to-high across all demographics, the measure has little chance of passing. But if liberals and moderate Democrats stay home this year as many analysts have predicted, races like Prop 23 and the gubernatorial contest could wind up being a lot closer than the current polls suggest.

A recent Rasmussen study found that 21 percent of California voters consider themselves to be members of the Tea Party. Other polls conducted throughout the country suggest that as many as 80 percent of self-identified Tea Partiers are likely to vote this fall.

With general turnout not expected to exceed 45 percent in California this year, the Tea Party movement could end up representing as much as 35 percent of the electorate on November 2. If that constituency votes as expected, it’s possible that Proposition 23 could pass with the support of less than one-third of the remaining electorate.


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  • JamesDavis

    The Tea Baggers seem to always want what’s best for America, like: collapsing the economy, collapsing the housing market, collapsing Wall Street, outsourcing 10s of millions of jobs, polluting our water, polluting our air, polluting and destroying our land, drill baby drill, collapsing our government, and keeping us in war/death/destruction. Yes, you gotta hand it to those Tea Baggers, they sure do know how to build America up and get us away from foreign oil and off fossil fuels like; nuclear, coal, and natural gas.

  • Craig Frank

    After attending several Tea Party events I don’t recall one time the discussions were at all along the lines mentioned in the previous email. If by wanting to cut down government spending, not allowing government to take control of too many areas of business, and to get officials to represent what the general public wants (and not their own personal wants and needs) then I guess we are “tearing down the country. God only knows how badly both parties have done so far.

    Second thought that amazes me is how polls show like 80% of the public thinks the ones in office now are doing a poor job and yet year after year we continue to elect them back into office (Boxer a prime example). Isn’t the old saying that continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting a different result…well you get the idea.

    Tea Party involvement is the solution, not the problem.

    CF

  • Anonymous

    I am amazed that some people actually believe that lowering taxes magically creates jobs while ignoring the jobs lost directly by the tax cut. Republicans have been brilliant at brainwashing (many) Americans into believing this line of crap and hiding the fact that the only group that would pay more in taxes are the wealthy!

    And they have been brilliant at convincing us that bureaucracy is a bad thing… what is bureaucracy? It is an American job, held by an American citizen, for the purpose of projecting and serving other American citizens… OMG, how AWFUL!!!

    And some Republicans think we are stupid enough to believe that the stimulus package created or saved ZERO jobs or that letting the banks fail was somehow the better solution. And they consistently and conveniently don’t tell us that more than 80% of the Stimulus Package(s) has or will be paid back! The stupidity is through the roof!!!

  • Anonymous

    I am amazed that some people actually believe that lowering taxes magically creates jobs while ignoring the jobs lost directly by the tax cut. Republicans have been brilliant at brainwashing (many) Americans into believing this line of crap and hiding the fact that the only group that would pay more in taxes are the wealthy!

    And they have been brilliant at convincing us that bureaucracy is a bad thing… what is bureaucracy? It is an American job, held by an American citizen, for the purpose of projecting and serving other American citizens… OMG, how AWFUL!!!

    And some Republicans think we are stupid enough to believe that the stimulus package created or saved ZERO jobs or that letting the banks fail was somehow the better solution. And they consistently and conveniently don’t tell us that more than 80% of the Stimulus Package(s) has or will be paid back! The stupidity is through the roof!!!

  • John & Regina

    We are Tea Party activists, and we wholeheartedly support moving away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. We drive one hybrid and are saving to buy a plug-in hybrid as our second vehicle. We recycle, compost, conserve electricity, pay a higher rate to have our home’s electricity generated by wind and biomass (“Green Generation” program of Consumers Energy in S.W. Michigan) and use only recycled paper products in our home.

    James Davis knows nothing about us and our fellow activists. (He might also be shocked to learn that my wife is a dark-skinned lady born and raised in South India. People like Davis, who lack security in their arguments and instead rely on slurs and ad hominem attacks, are constantly telling us that the Tea Party is a bunch of white people. My wife would be surprised to learn that she is white.)

    We don’t need James Davis arrogating to himself the power to tar all of our very large and diverse movement with one brush. Address the arguments, rather than engaging in childish and rude name-calling. Referring to one’s political opponents by a perjorative term which refers to a sexual practice (“tea-baggers”), is fitting for a 12-year-old, but not for any civilized adult.

    We’ll continue driving our ’09 Prius with the bumpersticker reading “Trickle Up Poverty [with Obama 'O' logo]” and “Not Left, Not Right, Just Free.” Sorry if we don’t conform to your stereotypes, James.

    And isn’t this supposed to be a site about hybrid vehicles? The fact that we’re reading and commenting here suggests that on the issues animating the site, we are probably ON THE SAME SIDE. Why insult conservatives and libertarians who have the sense to share your commitment to reducing pollution and getting off fossil fuels?

    Let’s work together, influencing all the political parties to enact policies facilitating the switch to EVs and PHEVs — and to replace our coal-burning power plants with wind farms, solar farms (in appropriate States), and nuclear power.

  • Michael R

    Dear John and Regina,

    As a professed liberal, I agree with you on your call to be civil. But be honest and ask yourself how often have you called on your fellow tea-party supporters to be civil in their discourse. If you have, I applaud you and encourage to do that more often (even if immediate results are lacking as I am sure you would agree). I believe the call for civility (and compromise) is much more effective when directed towards one’s own camp. I think the same goes to us liberals.

    Switching to your support for the government’s facilitating the move to hybrids and plug-ins and away from fossil fuels, what particular government initiatives would you as a tea-party member would support?

    Thanks and Regards,
    Michael

  • Elliot

    John and Regina,

    I applaud your effort to be civil and move away from fossil fuels.

    However, I would like to ask you:

    1) How many of your fellow TP activists share your enthusiasm for all things green?

    2) How many of your fellow TP activists share your enthusiasm for “civil discourse”?

    For the record, calling Obama the anti-christ and referring to all those left of center as “godless socialists” probably doesn’t pass the “civil discourse” litmus test.

    Just a thought.

  • John & Regina

    Thanks for your thoughtful response, Michael, that’s refreshing :) I know a lot of civil people on all sides, though I agree with you that there still are too many who just engage in name-calling in all directions.

    We’ve attended a Tea Party rally and found that the majority of people we personally encountered were generally thoughtful & intelligent. They dislike the President personally and consider him a man of low character, as do we. But they could explain why they opposed the Left’s policies, too.

    However, we also ran into people who could do no more than spout talking points — almost verbatim — from vacuous GOP cheerleaders like Sean Hannity. (Another guy we really like personally, and strongly agree with 60% of the time, but not the brightest star in the firmament, you know? ;) If I hear the phrase “San Francisco liberals” and “Washington insiders” one more time, from either party, I’m gonna scream. Most Dem officeholders may be those undesireable things, but instead of just repeating the epithets, we want a reasoned explanation of WHY their policies are bad for ther country and specifically how we’re going to do better.

    ………………….

    What government initiatives would we support? Fair question.

    1. NO SALES TAX
    Exempt highly fuel-efficient vehicles from State sales tax.
    We think Oregon or Washington offers this already?
    To be eligible for the exemption, a car would be required to achieve, say, a combined 50 mpg and up, SUVs 32 mpg and up. Keep the minimum mpg for the exemption moving up slightly every year.

    2. MUCH HIGHER GAS TAX, LOWER INCOME TAX
    Gradually increase the federal and state excise taxes on gasoline to several times their current level, i.e., to European levels (not something you’ll ever hear us say in other contexts! ;)

    But lower the federal and state income tax rates to make sure this isn’t an excuse for yet another increase in our overall tax burden. Taxing something tends to reduce its incidence, so we should be taxing things that we don’t want (pollution, dependence on oil from hostile or unreliable foreign powers) instead of things we do want (working, hiring, saving, investing, inventing).

    3. A REAL “CASH FOR CLUNKERS” PROGRAM
    The program we had was a joke. It was too limited in duration and scope, and it required far too little of those buying new vehicles. A real cash-for-clunkers program would require that the new vehicle do more than just exceed the pathetic, massively-polluting mpg levels of those retarded SUV and trucks getting 10, 12, 15, 18 mpg. Like the State sales-tax exemption, the federal benefit should go only to those who buy vehicles getting 50 mpg for a car or 32 mpg for an SUV. In practice, that means they could never get the benefit without buying a hybrid or PHEV.

    4. FED INCOME-TAX CREDIT FOR QUICK-CHARGERS
    Allow people to take a credit, or at least a deduction, for the installation of an EV/PHEV charging station at their home or business. This can’t be a one- or two-year program. It needs to be long-term — until at least half the population has transitioned to PHEVs and pure EVs.

    5. ALL-HYBRID GOVERNMENT FLEETS
    The federal and state governments should stop buying internal-combustion-only vehicles entirely. The massive purchasing power of the federal government alone would have all the companies scrambling to build new plants making hybrids and PHEVs. It would create an economy of scale. In turn, that would enable the manufacturers to lower their per-unit cost and, therefore, lower the price to the consumer, while still making a decent profit.

    6. AVOID UNNECESSARY WARS THAT WASTE BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF GAS AND OIL.
    Get us the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and don’t get embroiled in more wars that have nothing to do with true self-defense or justified retaliation. (Our Afghan invasion was certainly justified by 9-11; in fact, we wish that our troops had been given the green light to wipe out every town in the Pashtun regions. But 5, 10, 15 years of occupation and futile “nation building” is not justified by that attack almost a decade ago. And it’s unaffordable.) These long-term wars consume vast quantities of fossil fuels for our tanks, armored vehicles, planes, drones, ships, etc.

    With reasonable and polite people like you on “the other side”, we wouldn’t find ourselves “on the other side” quite so often. We are betting that since you identify as a liberal, you agree with most or all of these proposals. We’d love to hear your ideas too. LET’S GET TOGETHER AND PUT FOSSIL FUELS ON THE ROAD TO OBSOLESCENCE. Thanks, Michael :)

  • John & Regina

    Hi Elliott, thanks for writing. Our perception is that most Tea Party activists we know can explain their views with reasonable intelligence and civility. But yeah, that leaves far too many who use the slurs you mentioned. Can’t argue with you there.

    I find nothing wrong with calling someone a “socialist” if their voting record or proposals move us toward government control, subsidy or heavy regulation of property. But whether someone is “godless” has no bearing on whether we agree with their policy ideas.

    We believe in God, consider Jesus to be a noble and inspired prophet, and find much inspiration and practical guidance from the Bible, especially the New Testament. Statistically, this must be more true of the Tea Party movement than of the general population. (Though there are plenty of libertarians, who are not infrequently atheist, agnostic, or at least highly skeptical of organized religion.) But we will vote for anyone who appears competent, honest, and dedicated to maximizing individual freedom of choice and individual responsibility. We’d vote for a professed atheist libertarian over a Bible-believing socialist or fascist, any day.

    On the other hand, we are constantly referred to by the disgusting name “tea baggers.” We don’t hear Tea Party people referring to our ideological opponents by similar sexual or otherwise offensive terms. But whichever side is more prone to viciousness and childishness, we should all speak out against it when we hear it at “our side’s” events.

    For what it’s worth, one of us (not my fiancee) regularly enjoys toking up with a couple “progressive” friends who drive me nuts when it comes to political issues (other than legalizing pot, where we clearly agree ;)

  • Elliot

    J&R,

    Thanks for your response. First, I have to take issue with your “man of low character” crack. I personally think that is ridiculous and more “politics-as-usual”, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. I can only hope that your position is based on your view of policies.

    Second, I think you will find that many on the right strongly disagree with you on #2,3,5, and 6. #6 being the most obvious disagreement. I think the irony here is that the Dems and POTUS are much closer to those positions than the Rep party or most national level TP representatives.

  • John & Regina

    PS – Elliott, we’ve been working hard to get our Tea Party buds to realize how much our reliance on fossil fuels harms our country. Not enough of them get it yet, but perhaps more than you think.

    I know my family isn’t probably typical on “this side of the aisle”, but it’s worth noting that we’re not rare anymore either.

    First example. My parents, in NJ, haven’t bought a new vehicle in many years, but in the next few years they’ll be buying two. They aren’t even considering internal-combustion-only vehicles. They’re leaning towards a hybrid Ford Fusion and maybe a Prius. Only thing that’s kept them from buying a Prius so far is that it’s not assembled in the USA (Toyota promised 2 years ago to assemble them in Mississippi, but has assigned the new plant there to another vehicle for the time being.)

    Second example. My sister and her husband live in New Mexico, perfect for solar power. They’ve invested tens of thousands of dollars installing, maintaining and updating a solar energy system for their home in Valencia County, south of Albuquerque. They’re hardcore libertarians and support the Tea Party movement. (Both non-religious, even a bit ANTI-religious, and pro-choice on abortion, by the way.)

    Third example. My best friend Mark is from “the other part” of the Tea Party from my sister and me; he’s a hardcore social conservative whose biggest priorities include restoring the right of unborn babies not to be killed (we agree with him) and prohibiting gay marriage (we DIS-agree with him there). Yet I’ve hectored the poor guy so much that he’s planning to buy a hybrid too.

    …………..

    Lastly, it’s not that hard to appeal to conservatives about hybrids / EVs. Just get in their face about what their gasoline dollars are supporting. Remind them who gets the one billion dollars that we spend every day to import oil: enemies of the USA and enemies of freedom. The largest net exporters of oil and natural gas in the world include:

    a Communist dictatorship (Venezuela),

    several intolerant, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-reason Muslim dictatorships (Saudi Arabia and Iran),

    a nominally “democratic” regime which combines fascism and socialism and does everything it can to weaken, impoverish, threaten, and when possible invade its neighbors (Russia).

    Tea Party people stop and think afresh when we confront them with this reality. They do NOT want to send money to those regimes. We need to keep hammering them, and everyone else, with the reality of who profits from our needless gas-guzzling.

    ……………

    By the way, every single day we see SUVs with Obama bumperstickers, often with only one person in them. Most Obama supporters seem to be as lazy and selfish about their gas-guzzling ways as us evil Tea Party people…..

  • John & Regina

    No offense intended, but of course we understand it is annoying to hear that about a guy you support.

    Of the many reasons why we consider Obama to be a man of low character is this: he constantly states or implies that people who disagree with him must do so because they are ignorant, racist, ill-informed, or scared and “not thinking straight” as he said recently. That’s dirty pool. Most people who disagree seem to do so simply because they, well, disagree with his ideas.

    By the way, we also consider George W. Bush to be a man of low character who cannot be trusted — as well as an incompetent, inarticulate, deficit-spending, amnesty-pushing jackass. Hey you gotta love THIS paragraph, anyway! ;)

    …………….

    As for people on the Right disagreeing with many of our proposals above, that’s true. No way around it. We have influenced several Tea Party folks towards these ideas, and we’ll keep working at it.

    But let’s not assume that the other old party is much better. The Democrats have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for nearly 2 years, yet they haven’t made a serious effort to enact ANY of these proposals. They easily could have, given the size of their majorities. And the effect on the deficit would be less than some of the things they HAVE enacted.

    …………………………..

    Lastly, we distrust the GOP almost as much as the Democrats, and personally disdain many of their “leaders.” But unfortunately, our system is deliberately stacked against third parties. We need a more diverse range of voices, and more shades of viewpoint, available to the voter. We’d love to see both the Libertarians and the Greens become major parties — which they probably would if not for self-serving ballot access laws and their exclusion from debates.

  • John & Regina

    PS – Another irony, and we’re not being sarcastic, but serious. If Obama had his way, our household’s federal income tax would rise very substantially — enough to set us back a couple years, at least, in our effort to save up for a couple of PHEVs, if we could still buy them at all. Taking more of our earnings is not just morally wrong (in our view), it prevents us from doing very salutary things like buying cleaner vehicles and giving more to charity. If our income isn’t taken from us, we’d use it to do those things — as we have been — not to buy a yacht or whatever stereotype is out there.

  • Michael R

    Hi John & Regina,

    Thanks for sharing your ideas regarding reducing fuel consumption. I think you will find a long of liberals (myself included) who would wholeheartedly agree with most of what you said (as long as your tax cuts and credits would be fully paid for by the gas tax). Now this begs a number of questions:

    1. Don’t your suggestions go counter to the Tea Party’s insistence on reducing government interference in free market, and its view of any regulation as an assault on freedom?

    2. I read stats that only 6% of tea party supporters plan to vote for democrats. Who do you think is more likely, in general, to support your ideas, democrats or republicans? Do you honestly believe that Sean Hannity would ever support anything along the lines of your ideas?

    3. Given how divided and edgy our country has become, would not it be better to head the plea of our President and focus, at least initially, on something we can agree, to build some good will? Like your ideas for fossil fuels. Yet even the bills that Republicans co-sponsor were being blocked the moment the President would support them, like the energy/climate bill from Kerry-Graham.

    4. I agree with you that a party should be called according to the wishes of the party members. So, if you want to call your party a “Tea Party” and view other names derisory, it should be called a Tea Party and nothing else. But did you notice that Sean Hannity and other conservative commentators and even politicians always call the Democratic party the “Democrat Party”? You might say it almost the say, but it has become a whistle name, hence derisive. Democrats always call their party “Democratic Party”, why don’t you?

    Regards,
    Michael

  • dcdriver

    I have been sitting here reading this comment over and over and it still makes no sense. Tax cuts means a little more money in the pocket of citizens, maybe to spend and help the economy? Yes? What jobs lost by the tax cuts, government jobs? Those cubicle hamsters who do nothing and get paid for it. Also the wealthy all ready pay most of the taxes. Where did the Stimulus money come from? Who is paying it back to whom?
    The person who wrote that comment is obviously a Republican hater, and is a kool-aid drinking, tree-hugging liberal.
    Nobody is going to pay back any Stimulus money.

  • Michael R

    Dear dcdriver,

    I will leave it to John and Regina to respond to your calling me all these names (J&R, here is your opportunity to appeal to civility to your own camp!) As far as tax cuts go, I am all for it but I do not want to increase our debt hence I am saying it needs to be revenue-neutral. And if you say we should cut spending instead that’s fine but let’s cut spending first (or at the same time).

    Now about the wealthy paying all the taxes, what do you expect if the income inequality has grown so dramatically? If they have all the income, obviously they pay all the taxes.

    Finally, the non-partizan congress budget office rates tax cuts as very ineffective way to stimulate the economy. The reason is that wealthy do not spend their tax cut but invest it, and only a portion of that is invested in the US (as any financial advisor worth his salt will tell you, you should invest 30% abroad). And even the US investment in itself does not generate demand but simply inflates the stock prices.

    Regards,
    Michael

  • JamesDavis

    “Michael”, you really should not feed the trolls that much, it only makes them aggressive. You are wasting your time in trying to explain anything to a Republican or Tea Party member. The Republican’s and Tea Party’s convenient memory loss will not allow them to remember the 450 billion dollars that Bush threw out the door, just before he left office, to the banks with no accountability or responsibility… and, where did he get that money and how are we going to pay that back? The Rep and TP rs cannot remember that Bush plunged this country into one of the worst recessions in its history and sent this country into the “red” 3.9 trillion dollars. The worst in our history. Bush did that with tax breaks to the rich and his war agenda.

    Obama, whither you like him or not, and it is very obvious that the Republicans and Tea Party (Baggers), dislike Obama more than Dems hated that F’in Retarded Bush. Obama has stopped the recession and turned it around and increased job growth; all or most of the stimulus money he gave out has been paid back with interest; the health care reform has been a great success and so far has saved Americans billions of dollars in waste. I only have one problem with that Health Care Reform and that is: if the federal government is going to force people by law to buy insurance from a private insurer, (a republican idea) then they must provide a way were the common person can afford to purchase from a private insurer. There are 38 million people in America who cannot afford health insurance because they cannot afford to purchase from the private sector. The Republicans and the Tea Baggers do not get this, but that is not surprising with their low IQ.

    So, don’t feed the Trolls too much, it just makes them aggressive.

  • John & Regina

    Funny thing, James, our “low IQs” haven’t prevented us from earning two doctorates (law and veterinary medicine) and a master’s degree (Molecular Biology) between us. I speak one foreign language and Regina speaks two native languages (English and Kannada) and understands a bit of three more (Tamil, Hindi, French).

    (James, Tamil and Kannada are languages in South India.)

    By the way, everyone else, do you notice how James hasn’t addressed our policy proposals or other comments? And that he’s again acting like a 12-year-old boy in referring to political opponents by the name of a sexual practice? He’s doing our job for us. Thanks, James, please keep writing more of the same.

    We’ll have a civilized discourse with respectful people like Michael R and others instead.

    As for the guy calling someone here “a kool-aid-drinking tree-hugging liberal”, well, that liberal is right: grow up and learn to discuss instead of just call names. We don’t want people like you embarrassing the Tea Party or conservatives and libertarians generally. You definitely don’t speak for us. Some of those liberals are name-callers like you, but many are intelligent, thoughtfu, polite people — try actually talking WITH them, not yelling AT them, and you’ll discover that.

    One final thing: we will call it the DemocratIC party, not the Democrat Party. The commenter is right about that.

    ……………………..

    As for the actual subject matter of this website, we’re still slowwwwwwwly piling up cash to convert our ’09 Prius to a plug-in hybrid through Hymotion.

    As for the person who asked whether government subsidies and incentives to get away from fossil fuels are consistent with our limited-government philosophy, of course it’s a fair question. The answer is yes, certainly.

    Air and water pollution physically harm the bodies and health of unconsenting people, even though the advrse effects usually take a long time to manifest themselves (lung cancer, leukemia, aggravation of conditions like asthma, emphysema and COPD, etc).

    For example, an adult smoking tobacco or pot inside their own home, on private property, violates nobody’s rights and must be left free to choose. But someone driving a vehicle that emits poisonous gases (tailpipe emissions) has no absolute right to poison the air that other people can’t avoid breathing or the water they can’t avoid drinking to live.

    Technology and the burden on the economy necessarily counsel a long, gradual process of getting away from polluting fossil fuels, but libertarian principles require it, not just permit it.

  • JamesDavis

    You are right on one point, John & Regina. I should have said “politically low IQ”. I did not have a problem with the Tea Party until I learned that the party was started by two oil rich, anti-environmentalist barons who has more safety violations than Massey Energy in West Virginia and Palin started running her mouth and calling the democrats and President Obama “Fucken Retards” because of the way one of Obama’s members referred to the Blue Dog Democrats voting record on democratic policy.

    You know, as well as I do, that this country needs Health Care Reform that is more friendly to the people who make under 50 thousand a year; we need to clean up our environment and get away from fossil fuel as fast as possible, and we need to bring back or remanufacture those 10 million jobs we lost during the Bush administration. The Tea Party has offered no solutions, only excuses – one right after another. If you want the Tea Party to be looked at in a positive light, get it away from its founders and Palin. Those three people are dragging your party down and giving you a very bad image with the leading political party – the Democratic Party. I do not consider myself a democrat (although I agree with 99% of their policies) and I would never consider myself a republican. I was hoping, as was a lot of other people, that the Tea Party was building up to be a party that could actually get a better job done in Washington, but until you start offering solutions and stop hammering the Democrats that is trying to bring our country back from the brink (President Obama is trying his best to do this) you are going to be considered by people who is willing to give their life for this country (Like I was in two branches of the military.) a demonic possession of the Bush/Chaney/McCane/Palin administration.

    So, if you want to make a difference and get our country back in the right direction – start working with Obama’s administration on the issues that matters to you the most…. You said for one, “clean energy”.

  • Elliot

    John & Regina,

    I understand your desire to to join what might appear to be a breath of fresh air in the political spectrum. You are obviously well educated, and looking for a new path. I understand your frustration with the democrats (I share some of it even though I am one), but disagree with you strongly about Obama. He has done his best to find common ground and work with all parties, but there are many on both sides of the aisle who are more worried about protecting their own interests than compromising for the good of all. Same as it ever was.

    I will leave you with this….take a look at the national Tea Party movement. Do Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck really speak for you? Really?? I find that very hard to believe. So, you may not like Dems or Reps, but maybe you should find a group other than the Tea Party. Or you need to get your house in order and boot out hangers-on like Palin, Beck, and the head stomping guy in KY who assaulted a MoveOn demonstrator outside Rand Paul/Jack Conway debate.

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