Opposition to the tea party movement has reached a high in Virginia, a Washington Post/Abt SRBI poll shows, kicking a key leg of support out from under Ken Cuccinelli II as he tries to win the governor’s race on a strongly conservative platform.
Cuccinelli (R), the state attorney general, trails businessman Terry McAuliffe (D) by 12 percentage points among likely voters, the survey shows. And Cuccinelli’s decline comes as Virginians are increasingly turned off by the movement that has backed him strongly and with which he shares many views.
The tea party is opposed by 53 percent of registered voters in the commonwealth, up a slim three points from last year and up 10 points from a May 2011 Washington Post poll. Just 36 percent support the movement, down from 45 percent two years ago. Among those with the most intense feelings, voters who strongly oppose the tea party now outnumber those who strongly support it by more than 3 to 1.
Independents have soured most dramatically on the tea party: Fifty-five percent oppose the movement, up from 37 percent in May 2011. It’s also opposed by 80 percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Republicans.
Leon Turner, a retired furniture factory worker from Collinsville in southwest Virginia’s Henry County, plans to vote the straight GOP ticket Tuesday. But he’s not a fan of the tea party. “I don’t really like them that much,” said Turner, 74. “I don’t think they’re going to get their way, and I think it will just stir up more problems than it helps.” Turner said that he agrees with the tea party “in theory” on many issues and that he “kind of liked them when they first started out.” But his view has changed, particularly since the fight over funding the health-care law, which led to the 16-day shutdown of the federal government.
“I don’t think they should have went that far,” Turner said.
The shutdown was deeply unpopular, and it hobbled Cuccinelli’s efforts to close the race with McAuliffe. Even 60 percent of avowed supporters of the tea party say they disapproved of the shutdown, although a majority of “strong” tea party backers say they approved of it.
The tea party’s slippage hasn’t stopped Cuccinelli from running a campaign increasingly focused on turning out base Republican voters in the final weeks of an off-year election in which turnout is expected to be low.
What turned the tides? The Tea Party seemed to be riding high 3 and 4 years ago. Are the American people that fickle? Perhaps all the doom and gloom has not come true. Perhaps the brinksmanship involving the debt ceiling not once, but twice, got people’s negative attention. Perhaps people just realized that the objectives of the tea party were unrealistic. Storms like Sandy made us realize that “Stop Spending” was easier said than done when Americans were suffering. In the end, it appears that the shutdown was the final nail in the coffin, at least for Virginians.
Is Ken Cuccinelli a tea party person? What makes a tea party person? His behavior certainly was cheered on by the loose-knit group and he seemed to embrace them. Did they damage him or did he damage himself? Cuccinelli has been somewhat of maverick as he used the power of his office as Attorney General to advance some of his own political ideology.
Cuccinelli will try to appeal to his base, whatever that is. I am assuming that means the tea party. Right now, as we round the home stretch, it looks like things aren’t going well for the GOP. Has the entire party’s brand been hurt because of continued presence of the tea party? Many say yes. On the other hand, the GOP has gained numbers. Now its like the tea party is an unwelcome guest that has over-stayed its welcome and is simply no longer welcome. I suppose the moral of the story is “Be careful what you wish for!”
It’s over when the last ballot has been counted. A good lesson for the Democrats might also be, ” Don’t count your chickens until they hatch.”
Additional reading:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/10/29/the-three-strikes-against-ken-cuccinelli/?hpid=z3
Then there is Kathleen Parker:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-virginia-is-a-gop-wake-up-call/2013/10/29/bd8c5268-40bc-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage&tid=pp_widget
Virgina is not the center of the universe. Rasmussen national poll says 42% believe their views are close to those of Obama and 42% say theirs are closer to the Tea Party. Dead heat. Actually, the shutdown apparently did drop the Tea Party down from their previous 48%. No sweat though. The ObamaCare debacle will likely take care of that. Have you heard Steny Hoyer admit that the Dems DID know that the ACA would deprive people of their personal insurance policies, even while POTUS was looking us in the eye on camera and assuring us that it would not? Thank you, Congressman Steny. I am sure the Tea Party will bring up Dem integrity and truthfulness from time to time in the 2014 debates.
The WaPo recently ran an article about one of the congressional districts that supported the shutdown – you know, the Tea Party induced monetary loss. It’s an area with which I’m familiar. It’s economy is largely based on manufacturing a product that depends on housing construction and the whims of fashion. But to hear the businesspeople they interviewed, one would think its tanking economy was all Obama’s fault – or the bank’s, or Publix’s, or, or, or…. Not the individual’s who couldn’t read the handwriting on the wall, lost one career as a real estate developer, and decided instead to open a high-end butcher shop in a faltering economy. It’s typical Tea Party refusal to face reality and refusal to accept responsibility. People are growing tired of these belly-aching males. They’re flailing around looking for someone to blame and not looking for solutions or facts.
The article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/at-the-source-of-the-shutdown-the-economy-falters–and-anger-at-obama-runs-high/2013/10/28/67d51c90-3fe2-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html
The Tea Party’s support all comes in Red States. In swing states like Virginia their influence will quite clearly be negative to the GOP. Virginia’s a great example. The Democrats have nominated a man with huge issues, that no one’s particularly enthused about, for Governor and he’s opened up a huge lead.
I have been saying all along that vaginal probes was not a winning campaign issue. Cuccinelli’s support for vaginal probes was a terrible idea. With all the negativity surrounding the ACA, why did he make vaginal probes the centerpiece of his campaign? I though the tea party was all about cutting wasteful spending, not increasing spending on vaginal probes. This is why Cuckoo is going to get his butt kicked next week.
@Wolverine No Virginia is not the cente if the universe but it is where we live and is where the election will be. Your boy is about to ge his butt kicked big time.
One can always find a poll that defies logic and reality, but it’s pretty clear that the bloom’s off the rose regarding the tea party. If they had stayed true to grass roots and tax issues, they probably would have done better, but the Koch brothers, the Heritage Foundation and others took control and drove them into the ground. Who’s next?
“why did he make vaginal probes the centerpiece of his campaign? ”
I don’t think that was his strategy. I’m trying to imagine such a campaign.
I really like Kathleen Parker sometimes, and this is one of those times! I know several moderate republicans and they are voting D in this election, a slate of D, all they way down the ticket. Tired of crazy I guess.
That’s what has happened to me. You walk by the town lunatic ranting and raving his wild conspiracy theories day after day, and ranting about the end of civilization, and you don’t pay him much mind until you actually see him attack somebody and try to hurt them. And by that point you’ve grown weary of his rantings.
Let’s not get delirious here.
Let’s remember the 1948 presidential election, when newspapers
printed first page picture of the expected winner. It wasn’t Truman!
Evidently “everybody” thought that Thomas Dewey was the winner.
“Pride goes before fall”
“Never assume a god damn thing”
I have said all along the worst mistake Democrats can make is to let up to push. They are sunk if people don’t go to the polls.
Not all polls show a 12 point lead either. Some of the polls are within margin of error. I would say its touch and go and its over when the last ballot has been counted.
BTW some good news – the deficit is going down, rather than up – http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html
I want to jump on the roof and scream to the FOX News viewers of the world, “The deficit was caused by an endless parade of tax cuts, not by the fact that we collectively seek to feed children and to enable health care access, you dumb anal-retentive f*cks”.