Now that tea bagging has failed what is next for the right wing?

[Dinner]

A bare minimum of 25,650 people turned out for tea party protests across the country

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/tea_pary_turnout_a_rundown_of_estimates.php

The right wing tea bagging movement has pretty much been an epic fail despite the hundreds of millions GOP big whigs dumped into it and the tens of thousands of hours of free air time over four months that Fox Noise used to promote this rather gayly named "movement". What's next for the GOP and the fringe groups who still follow it? Clearly this hasn't gotten any traction.

[Patroklos]

Hundreds of millions? What?

[Kuciwalker]

Do you understand what "minimum" means?

[Dinner]

Between all the promotional stuff, consultants, and air time. Yeah, easily.

[Kuciwalker]

Also, LOL @ "hundreds of millions".

[Dinner]

Do you understand what "minimum" means?

Of course but it was clearly an epic fail. The total was clearly less then 50k out of a total population of 300 million. It was a nonevent. We get more then that at your average free community music event just in this city and that was their total nation wide.

[rah]

Hmm, it was broadcast on every news show I watched yesterday (and I never turned on fox), so I wouldn't call it a failure. There were multiple protests in Chicago and each one got precious air time.

[Patroklos]

Between all the promotional stuff, consultants, and air time. Yeah, easily.

So you made it up, gottcha. How about we assume you were talking about pennies instead of dollars, that sounds a bit more realistic, no?

[Dinner]

And yet Obama's poll numbers are near record highs despite the GOP's best efforts. Heck even the majority of Americans say they support a bigger government role during times of economic crisis. To top it off the most Americans ever, in 40 years of polling, no tell Gallup that they think their tax rate is fair or to low. 51%.

It sure doesn't seem like the GOP's smear tactics are working very well. Their attempts to get right wingers to tea bag each other sure didn't get very many people to show up.

[rah]

There were large crowds in chicago protesting.
This is the perfect target to energize a lethargic Republican base. Despite the pols that you read, people still hate taxes. They're transferring that hate to the Obama administration. (unfairly so, but if they get away with it, good for them) It's no different then the DEMS energizing the minority voters with lies. A majority of both parties are filled with people that aren't exactly bright. They're manipulated from a higher level. Using the hatred of taxes as one such manipulation while not exactly honorable will be effective based on what I saw yesterday.

And it's not really critical how many show up, it's how the message gets out and the message got out quite well based on the news coverage. All the media coverage showed TIGHT shots so it looked like a lot more people.

[Patroklos]

To top it off the most Americans ever, in 40 years of polling, no tell Gallup that they think their tax rate is fair or to low. 51%.

I have no doubt the 30% of Americans who don't pay income taxes think it is fair.

[Dinner]

Income taxes were never meant to be paid by everyone and EVERYONE in the US pays taxes. The income tax is not the only tax.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

It didn't fail. It provided fodder for the funniest Rachel Maddows segment I've seen in ages.

[Dinner]

[Kuciwalker]

Of course but it was clearly an epic fail. The total was clearly less then 50k out of a total population of 300 million. It was a nonevent. We get more then that at your average free community music event just in this city and that was their total nation wide.

Nate Silver disagrees with you by a factor of 5, and you can't really call him a Republican tool:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/tea-parties-appear-to-draw-at-least.html