MUSLIMS, ATHEISTS, MORE POPULAR THAN TEA PARTY POLL SHOWS

NEWS FLASH

Poll: Tea Party Less Popular Than Muslims, Atheists, 21 Other Groups | The debt ceiling deal has left the Tea Party more disliked than ever, as a recent New York Times poll shows. In April, 2010, 21 percent of Americans approved of the Tea Party while 18 percent disapproved of it. Now, 20 percent approve while a stunning 40 percent disapprove of it. Ironically, the conservative movement is now more unpopular than two often-marginalized groups it sometimes rails against — Muslims and atheists — and is the least popular of the 23 groups the poll asked about:

The Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

MORE ON GOVERNOR PERRY'S JOBS MYTHICAL MIRACLE:

 “Texas has one of the highest percentages of workers who are paid the minimum wage and receive no medical benefits. Perry has also presided over a steady, decade-long decline in his state’s employment to population ratio. He inherited a ratio of more than 47 percent from George W. Bush, but now only 43.5 percent of Texans have a job, compared to 44.7 percent of the total U.S. population."

I guess Gov. Perry is hoping no one will actually, y'know, look at his record and his rhetoric and discover they don't match up in the truth department.  But Perry's one of those good ole Tea Baggers, and they create their own reality, which has no relation to truth.

Keep up the good work, Gov. Perry.  You're making things easier and easier for the White House:

"Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), using borderline-violent rhetoric towards Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and casually throwing around words like “treacherous” and “treasonous.” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters today, “When you’re president or you’re running for president you have to think about what you’re saying because your words have greater impact. President Obama and we take the independence of the Federal Reserve very seriously and certainly think threatening the Fed chairman is probably not a good idea.”
As Greg Sargent explained very well this afternoon, rhetoric like Perry’s is exactly the sort of thing the White House needs to reinforce its larger message.

Here’s another reason Republican establishment figures have to be unhappy about Rick Perry’s implied threat towards Ben Bernanke: It plays into the Obama strategy of presenting himself as the “adult in the room” while elevating more prominent expressions of Republican excess or outright whackjobbery and using them as a convenient foil. […]

As Kevin Drum notes today, Obama has settled on a reelection narrative that is centered on the idea that he’s the only “sober, serious guy who’s fit to be president” in the room. He’s running against “Teh Crazy.” You can debate endlessly whether Obama is focusing his attacks too generally on “Congress” or whether he should be calling out Republicans more directly, but the overall objective is clear: Obama’s foil is Republican extremism and excess. Having the most prominent and accomplished true conservative in the presidential race suggest that a Republican Fed chairman may be guilty of treason, while implicitly threatening him with a species of Texas frontier justice — even in jest, if that’s how it was intended — can only help in this regard.

Exactly right. One of the lines I’ve heard Obama use three times in two days is, “I know you’re frustrated; I’m frustrated, too.” It’s part of a not-so-subtle effort to draw voters a picture: sensible people believe American politics is broken, and the president is on their side. The question for voters is whether someone like Obama, the grown-up who solves problems, or someone like Perry, the buffoon who accuses Ben Bernanke of treason, can be trusted to help make politics work again."

h/t Steve Benen/Washington Monthly