In response to this Tea Bagger billboard, a Tea Bagger leader, said:

“That’s just a waste of money, time, resources and it’s not going to further our cause,” said Shelby Blakely, a leaders of the Tea Party Patriots, a national group. “It’s not going to help our cause. It’s going to make people think that the tea party is full of a bunch of right-wing fringe people, and that’s not true.”

HANG ON!!!

The Tea Party is NOT “a bunch of right-wing fringe people?”  WHAT WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?!?!?!

(PAUSE FOR DEEP BREATH)

If that is a fact (which it isn’t) then the Tea Party has a worse advertising group than the Democrats- and that is saying something.

Let’s break that quote down.  It says that the Tea Party is not:

1) right-wing

or

2) fringe people

Let’s look at each assertion separately:

Let’s take a look at the Tea Bagger Party and their views vs. Republican views (source from HERE) and maybe we will see that they are not right wing in their views at all (* NOTE: NOT HOLDING BREATH HERE) :

When asked what they considered “extremely serious threats” to the country’s future wellbeing, tea partiers cited the exact same things as run-of-the-mill Republicans. Shocker, right? Both groups overwhelmingly pointed to federal debt (61 percent of tea partiers, 55 percent of GOPers), Big Government (49 percent, 43 percent), health care costs (41 percent, 37 percent), and “terrorism” (51 percent, 51 percent) as the biggest threats to American prosperity. And in the category of unimportant threats, both groups dismiss the environment/global warming and discrimination against minorities. Here’s a good breakdown from Gallup:

Looks pretty close to right wing mentality to me…

“Yeah Matt what about the “FRINGE PEOPLE” part of that quote..but what about that, huh?  So what they are conservative,  but they aren’t extremists are they. You haven’t shown anything to support that HAVE YOU SMARTY PANTS?”

I hear your cry and well, since you asked for it…

So media coverage of the tea party is overblown? Maybe they’re not such a novel group after all?  That’s the message gleaned by the Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent:

The Tea Party movement gets a disproportionate share of media attention because of all the funny costumes, Hitler references, and fantasizing about armed revolution…

…and that doesn’t sound like “ fringe people” to you?  What does then?

Maybe this Tea Party platform outline taken from http://www.teapartyplatform.us/Welcome.html will illustrate the “fringeness” of the Tea Party belief system:

Get government out of our lives and eliminate social security and medicare now!

As strict constructionists we believe the Constitution should be amended to protect life and prohibit all abortions, without exception.

Speaking of the Constitution, we believe citizenship should be denied to children of non-citizens born in the U.S. even though the 14th Amendment, says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.” Common sense tells us they didn’t really mean all persons born in the United States. Did they?

Put God back in the schools and let curricula tell the truth – that evolution is just a theory, like the theory of gravity. Freedom of religion for all Christians. Jews might be ok too.

Appoint a special prosecutor to thoroughly investigate the probable foreign birth of Barack Hussein Obama.

On libertarian principles, private restaurants and other businesses should not be forced to serve minorities. Though we abhor discrimination and if there is a minority out there who wants to join us they are welcome!

Protect the 2nd Amendment rights of people who are on the terrorist no-fly list!

I seriously doubt you will find many “non-tea party” Republicans who will agree to this platform.  At least, in public.

So there, RIGHT- WING FRINGE PEOPLE you are!

WHAT??? YOU NEED MORE PROOF???

This nugget is gleaned from The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (found here.)  Please note the last sentence of this paragraph:

Eight-in-ten Tea Party Republicans are closely following news about local candidates and campaigns, just half of Republicans who have no opinion about the Tea Party say the same. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) Tea Party Republicans are absolutely certain they will vote, compared with 68% of Republicans with no opinion about the Tea Party. Roughly two-thirds (65%) of Tea Party Republicans say they are more enthusiastic about voting this year than usual; about half (49%) of Republicans with no opinion of the Tea Party say the same.  On all three measures, Republicans with no opinion of the Tea Party movement share more in common with Democratic voters than with Tea Party Republican voters.

According to the article, You Tea Party wackos are ALL ABOUT SOME VOTING, way more so than Reps and Dems, (which is cool) but you have less in common with other CONSERVATIVES than the LIBERALS do!

SO, SIMPLY PUT THE DEMOCRATS (YOU KNOW THE SOCIALISTS, MARXISTS, ETC. ACCORDING TO YOUR OWN BILLBOARD) HAVE MORE IN COMMON WITH YOUR ALLIES THAN YOU DO.

SUMMARY:

YOU ARE “RIGHT- WING FRINGE PEOPLE.”

I rest my case.