The Tea Party is regularly ridiculed and declared “dead” by the mainstream press and their elitist allies in Washington and Hollywood. Not surprisingly, when Tea Partiers show up and rally by the thousands, they get all but ignored, while 30 Occupy Wall Street crazies in masks will always get wall-to-wall coverage and admiration. TV shows and movies take cheap shots at Tea Party conservatives, often linking them to murder-of-the-week cases on insipid crime procedurals or dismissing them as “birthers.” But a new Associated Press poll shows tea party supporters may have the last laugh in November.
The AP/GFK poll shows that 31% of likely voters consider themselves Tea Party supporters. With 131 million votes cast in the 2008 elections, that translates into an incredible voting bloc of 41 million Tea Party supporters waiting to cast ballots. These voters have already made their voices heard in Wisconsin earlier this year, as well as in Republican primaries in Texas and Nebraska.
That 31% of likely voters figure is greater than the 19% who described themselves as either strongly or somewhat liberal. Surprisingly, liberals have escaped media characterization as being a small, fringe-like group with little power or influence. At 19% of likely voters, self-described liberals would have a turnout of 25 million voters, some 16 million fewer voters than the Tea Party.
The good news for Mitt Romney and other Republican hopefuls is that the Tea Party supporters also appear ready to turn out in much higher numbers than all other voters. For instance, while they only made up 23% of the initial polling sample, which was a sample of all adults, their numbers improve as unlikely voters were removed by the AP from the data. When unregistered and unlikely voters were taken out of the poll, their share of the vote increased by 35%, to nearly one-third of the voting population.
Meanwhile, self-described liberals fell 11% from the initial sample to the likely voter sample, while moderates increased by 3% and conservatives increased by 8%. This enthusiasm gap could make the difference in November. Once unregistered and unlikely voters were removed from the AP poll sample, Obama’s share of the vote plummeted by 10%, while Romney’s share of the vote increased by 28%. That support is driven, of course, by a supposedly dead movement. Overall, the poll shows a statistical tie with Obama at 47%, and Romney at 46%.
Every year at this time I recall a story that made me think about the important things. Not that I did not lose some good people to the war in Vietnam in my day. Those that fell. Some that went of their own accord, some that didn’t. They were all humans, “The reasons did not matter.” She said, as the one long silent tear fell down her face. No fault, no reasons now would matter much anyway they are gone; never to have seen children or wives or husbands. People who barely touched my path and then went to the other side in the name of FREEDOM.
IIt’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas Tree. No name, identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.
It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas — oh, not
the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it
– overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute
to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma
– the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of
anything else.
Knowing that he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the
usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for
something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an
unusual way.
Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior
level at the school he attended. Shortly before Christmas, there
was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city
church, mostly black. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so
ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them
together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy
blue uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes.
As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was
wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to
protect a wrestler’s ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team
obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We
took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from
the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado,
a kind of street pride that couldn’t acknowledge defeat.
Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly. “I wish just one
of them could have won,” he said. “They have a lot of potential,
but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.”
Mike loved kids — all kids — and he knew them, having coached
youth league football, baseball, and lacrosse. That’s when the
idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local
sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling
headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city
church.
On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note
inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift
from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that
year, and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed
the tradition — one year sending a group of mentally
handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to
a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground
the week before Christmas, and on and on.
The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was
always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our
children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed
anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to
reveal its contents. As the children grew, their toys gave way
to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its
allure.
The story doesn’t end there.
You see, we lost Mike last year to dreaded cancer. When
Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I
barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an
envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three
more.
Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an
envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown, and
someday will expand even further, with our grandchildren
standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation, watching
as their fathers take down the envelope.
Mike’s spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with
us. May we all remember the true reason for the
season, this year and always.
With special thanks to Nancy Gavin’s
family for allowing us to share this beautiful story. Nancy
wrote this article for Women’s Day Magazine in 1982.
So many times now I’ve heard comparisons of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, I’m sick of it because it could not be further from the truth. Neil Cavuto, Bill O’Reilly, and Gretta Susteren to name a few of those I consider it a travesty since they are on Fox News. Ailes still desperately searching for the looney left? I’ve read so many from the lamestream media that I no longer take a single stock in because they are nothing but liars paid to carry liberals water. But let me make this PERFECTLY CLEAR to coin a phrase of the traitor living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, there is no likeness between the Tea Party and OWS. No one at any Tea Party I attended and I’ve attended them across the country, has ever taken a crap in the middle of a road or on a police car. After a Tea Party event that drew hundreds of thousands of Americans that left the wonderful DC Mall as clean as when they came. Waiting an hour or more to use a porta-toilet. And making sure the patriotic signs they brought went back with them when they left.
Occupy Wall Street crapping in the streets, disrespecting our country and our law officers. No more needs to be said. So yes, to all you morons on Fox and the vast wasteland that is called Lamestream media, basically everyone else; you have no brain if you think these two groups have a single thread in common.
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