The Toast of the Tea Party or Just Toast?

Tuesday’s New York Times carried this front page story on the 2010 US Senate race in California and focused on the three Republican candidates and how they differ.  The stately Gray Lady, the nation’s newspaper of record, used this quote from State Rep Charles DeVore (yes, we call him Chuck).

“This is eminently winnable for all three Republicans,” Mr. DeVore said of the Boxer race, “but I would argue, counterintuitively, that I am the most dangerous threat. Because I am the guy who is the toast of the Tea Partiers.”

The toast of the Tea Partiers, or as we like to refer to them by their original tags, “teabaggers.”

The story also had this nugget about our assemblyman:

Mr. DeVore may be the wild card in the race. He has won the backing of an influential conservative political action committee created by Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina. And his candidacy will offer a test of the strength of the Tea Party movement in this state. A poll taken in California in January found that 70 percent of Republicans had heard of the Tea Party movement, with 52 percent of them identifying with its ideas somewhat or “a lot.”

But Mr. DeVore, who is known as Chuck, is struggling to raise money, and remains barely known by most Californians. He said he hoped that as his profile rose, he would draw a wave of Tea Party contributions from across the country.

Barely known.  Chuck isn’t the toast of tea partiers.  He’s toast.

But let’s examine this movement Chuck has attached himself to soon tightly.

According to this poll by CBS News and the New York Times, most Tea Party members don’t know they got a federal tax cut last year.  Isn’t that the purpose of the movement? Taxed-Enough-Already?  Apparently, most can’t ascertain changes to their pay stubs and more money in their pocket.

From the story: 

Here’s the poll question: “In general, do you think the Obama Administration has increased taxes for most Americans, decreased taxes for most Americans or have they kept taxes the same for most Americans?”

The answer:
• 24 percent of respondents said they INCREASED taxes.
• 53 percent said they kept taxes the same
• And 12 percent said taxes were decreased.

Of people who support the grassroots, “Tea Party” movement, only 2 percent think taxes have been decreased, 46 percent say taxes are the same, and a whopping 44 percent say they believe taxes have gone up.

Wow.  The truth is 95 percent of Americans got a federal tax cut last year.  I can’t believe all the Tea Party protesters are complaining about an income tax increase on a personal income of $250K a year.  But frankly, a lot of us would like this problem.

Then, there’s that subtle underhanded racism that seems to crop up in the Tea Party movement, which happened during former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo’s public remarks at the recent Tea Party convention in Nashville.

Tancredo said that President Obama had won his office because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Does this mean Chuck wants to be associated with a movement that harkens back to the good ol’ days Jim Crow where literacy tests were used to deny a majority of African-Americans the right to vote?  Does the Tea Party movement want to repeal he Voting Rights Act of 1965?  How many tea partiers still believe that President Obama wasn’t born here?  Or that he’s muslim?  Or a socialist? Or marxist?  Some think he’s Hitler.

Even John McCain’s daughter Meagan denounced the Tea Party movement as racist.  She told CBS News that Tancredo’s statements represented “innate racism.”

“And I think it’s why young people are turned off by this movement,” she said. “And I’m sorry [but] revolutions start with young people. Not with 65-year-old people talking about literacy tests and people who can’t say the word ‘vote’ in English. It’s ridiculous.”

Is this the movement Chuck wants to attach himself to?  Does he really want to lead a group of people who are protesting the fact they got a federal tax cut last year  but will believe anything Sarah Palin says (after she’s read it from note on her hand of course..a tele-palm-ter)?

As I said before, the toast of the tea party is just toast for the rest of California.