What is the Tea Party?

Before reading Zernike I unfortunately didn’t know much about the Tea Party movement and what the motives of this group were. After reading Zernike I was able to develop a personal perception and opinion towards the Tea Party. Jennifer Turner Stefano, a woman who unintentionally attended a rally on Tax Day in April of 2008 shared her personally beliefs in Zernike’s article, Boiling mad. At this rally, the scene shocked Jennifer, but at the same time she was also energized by the amount of energy and motivation of the voters and was propelled to learn more. In the past she said that she “was struggling to find leaders she could embrace (31).” Like others she had her opinions and her positive and negative feelings towards the candidates of the elections, but she was never actually fully satisfied with either of the sides. I can make a personal connection to her because in the past I have never really been able to stick to one candidate and put forth 100% percent commitment to them and their beliefs.

The Tea Party is a movement for people to express their committed national support to their interpretations of the Constitution and to the success and failures of the government. According to the Tea Party Patriots the Tea Party’s core principles are “fiscal responsibility constitutional limited governments, and free markets.” They provide support, reason, evidence, and a solution to the agendas and policies of primarily Republican candidates.

The poll regarding the approval or disapproval of Barack Obama in the New York Times/CBS News Poll of Tea Party Supporters stated that out of all respondents, 50 approved, and the other 40 disapproved. These numbers are almost even with each other, which also go to show how voters have a hard time picking one side or another. Because there isn’t a large margin between the results proves that there is an even confusion of the people, rather than having a strict belief on one side or the other.