Tea Party

Interesting NYT/CBS poll -

85% of Tea Partiers think they represent most Americans although only 25% of All Respondents (including the Tea Partiers) think that the Tea Partiers represent most Americans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

For me, any group that has Sarah Palin as their titular head....little more needs to be said...57% of Tea Partiers think W was a great president...no more needs to be said...

Is the following any surprise then?


At Tea Party Rallies, a Fox News Presence
More than any other major news outlet, the Fox News Channel has aligned itself with the Tea Party movement.
On Thursday, the movement was back in the news as rallies that coincided with the April 15 deadline for filing income tax forms took place across the country. Other cable news channels have reporters at the rallies, but only Fox has sent two of its biggest stars to be the hosts of hour-long programs from the event sites.
Neil Cavuto, the 4 p.m. host on Fox News and an executive at the sister network Fox Business, is in Atlanta for a rally there, and Sean Hannity, the 9 p.m. host on Fox News, is in Cincinnati for a rally and a signing of his best-selling book.
In both cases, local organizers are promoting the Fox’s presence at the rallies. In Cincinnati, seats beside Mr. Hannity’s stage were sold for $20 to $100. The money is to go to a group called the Cincinnati Tea Party.
For more than a year Fox has faced accusations that it is promoting the Tea Party movement. On April 15 last year, four of Fox’s programs were broadcast from protest sites, and the Fox host Glenn Beck said that viewers could “celebrate with Fox News” by attending or tuning in. That month the liberal media watchdog Media Matters published a number of examples of what it called promotion of the Tea Party by Fox.
Asked by Media Matters about the programming, the News Corporation chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch said earlier this month: “I don’t think we should be supporting the Tea Party or any other party. But I’d like to investigate what you are saying before I condemn anyone.”
The network often differentiates between its opinion shows, which feature people like Mr. Cavuto and Mr. Hannity, and its daytime news shows. Opinion shows make up the majority of Fox’s weekday schedule.
In its commercials for Mr. Cavuto’s program this week, Fox said he would be “covering” the Atlanta rally. Notably, Mr. Beck, who attended an April 15 rally in Texas last year, is not taking his show on the road this year.
Fox is clearly the favored network among supporters of the Tea Party. A New York Times-CBS News poll found that 63 percent of self-described Tea Party supporters gain most of their television news from Fox, compared to 23 percent of all Americans.