Who are the Tea Partiers?

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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July 02, 2010

Who are the Tea Partiers?

A USA Today/Gallup poll finds that three of 10 Americans describe themselves as Tea Party supporters -- equal to the number who call themselves Republicans -- "though many of them acknowledge they aren't exactly sure what that allegiance means."

In fact, the Tea Party "is less a classic political movement than a frustrated state of mind."

"What unites Tea Party supporters is less their geography or demography than their policy views: a firm conviction that the federal government has gotten too big and too powerful and a fear that the nation faces great peril. Nine in 10 are unhappy with the country's direction and see the federal debt as an ominous threat to its future. Almost as many say neither President Obama nor most members of Congress deserve re-election."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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July 02, 2010