3:49 PM
Norbrook
While various politicians in the Republican Party still spend a lot of time pandering to the Tea Party elements in the party, and the media still treats them as a "major force to be reckoned with," more recent events are showing a decline in the Tea Party's ability to mobilize people into their media-friendly events.
One of the best examples of this was Sarah Palin's recent appearance in Madison Wisconsin headlining a Tea Party rally to support Governor Scott Walker.
Sarah Palin defended Wisconsin's governor at a tea party tax day rally Saturday, telling hundreds of supporters that his polarizing union rights law is designed to save public jobs.Yes, I bolded the important part. Hundreds of supporters. Not tens of thousands. The total crowd was estimated at 6500, most of whom seemed to be counter-protestors.
The pro-Palin crowd filled only part of the King Street entrance, from the steps to about 50 feet from the Hans Christian Heg statue. And although there was some spillover of tea partiers to either side, the rally was dwarfed by the counter-protesters who filled the back end of the entrance and spilled into the street.Was this rally publicized? Did the right wing groups fail to push it? No, they put forth quite an effort.
The Koch Brothers threw their front group Americans For Prosperity into the effort to hold an anti-union rally in Madison headlined by Sarah Palin. All the resources were deployed, Palin fans were begged to attend, Americans For Prosperity had no less than 13 buses lined up, and despite all of this, the crowd never came.Despite their best efforts, with one of the "biggest draws" they had, they couldn't even get 10% of the crowd that turned out to protest the Wisconsin anti-union law, and that's including the counter-protestors in the turnout. This is just the latest in a series of Tea Party events that have drawn far less than was planned. Instead of the projected large numbers, the "mass turnout" which draws media coverage, they're ending up being a low turnout, not very interesting events.
While the Tea Parties still have sway in Republican circles, and are a factor in primaries, as a mass far-right movement with have staying power, it's not. It's beginning to fade, as people start to see the actual impact of the policies the Teapublicans have promoted, and as people start to actually think about what they mean. While various Republican presidential candidates will pander to them, the problem they're going to face is that they're betting on a movement which is losing strength. In embracing the radical right, the Republicans may have gotten a short term gain, but long-term disaster. It couldn't happen to a better bunch.
6 comments:
I don't know about that. The Drudge Report is telling it quite differently.
I'm sure Drudge is showing pictures (with palm trees) that prove there were millions of people there. Only the truly picky would think that someone was using Photoshop's cloning tool on the photograph.
Of course Drudge is portraying the event differently. That's what he and the rw specialize in: an alternate reality. The union supporters drowned out the speeches from the AFP speakers, and pizzed off the anti-union speakers.
Even though they used a sound system, it was hard to hear everything the speakers were saying over the counter-chants. The acoustics were such that you could hear the speakers better from afar than you could up close.
From Phil Munger's blog:
"Only the shrill Vicki Mckenna, talk show host WIBA, seemed to be able to cut through the chanting, when she told them: "Shut up." The crowd didn't listen. Andrew Breitbart was similarly annoyed and told the crowd, "you've been so rude, go to hell. You're trying to divide America."
http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2011/04/saradise-lost-book-5-chapter-45.html
I didn't attend the rally but I've seen the pictures, watch the live feed and read the reports. The Wisconsin State Journal and the CBS affiliate both agree on the number 6500 attendees for both the Tea Party Rally and the Counter-Rally that was held on the the other side of the Capitol Building. So no matter how you slice the Tea Party did not receive a huge turn out.
In the aerial pics I've seen it does "look" like the Tea Party had more supporters attend, but looks are deceiving. I just saw a youtube taken by someone attending standing on the Tea Party side and filming those participants as they left. They had to walk through many counter-protesters to leave the Square (the area around the Capitol).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9cnd8CyPXc&feature=share
I don't condone the taunting the man with the camera did, by the way, I'm just using this so you can see the size of the counter-crowd on that side of the Square. Mind you, this is while the Counter Rally was going on the other side of the Capitol building.
That's a pretty weak turnout considering there were 80,000+ protestors in Madison just a month or so before rallying against the anti-worker bill.
In a related story, only a couple hundred showed up for the National Tea Party Rally in DC last month, and only a couple hundred showed up to the Michelle Bachmann rally the other day. The Tea Baggers have fizzled.
It's so funny to watch democrats who got the collective butt kicked in November of 2010, talk about nothing for the last six months beside how the Tea Party is losing steam. Let's touch base after November of 2012 and see if you still think the Tea Party is losing steam.
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