California Field Tea Party Poll Woefully Inadequate

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

By Bill Berkowitz

California’s Field Poll finds that three in ten registered voters ‘identified’ with the Tea Party movement and three in ten don’t believe Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen.
 
If you are an ultra-conservative candidate and you’re running a Senatorial campaign that a poll released last week had you finishing third in the Republican primary with just 6 percent support, the results of this week’s Field Poll might boost your flagging spirits. That’s likely how California Assemblyman Chuck DeVore feels after seeing the results of The Field Poll regarding the Tea Party movement. However, this poll, like others on the same subject, pretty much confirmed that the Tea Party movement appears to be the traditional Republican Party/conservative movement in a new set of clothes. 
 
The San Francisco, California-based Field Research Corporation, which conducts the highly-respected Field Poll, found that nearly three in ten registered voters in California identified with the Tea Party movement. In addition, the poll – conducted earlier this month -- found that one-third of those polled still do not believe that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States. Because of the limited nature of the questions asked, we have no idea what “identifying” with the Tea Party movement actually means.
 
Putting aside the “birther” results for a moment, let’s look at the results regarding those identifying with the Tea Party movement. While this article doesn’t challenge the integrity of the Field Research Corporation, its methodology in conducting its polls, or its post-polling transparency, we do, however, want to look at whether the poll’s conclusions are particularly significant. 
 
According to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli, this was “the first time the [Field] poll had measured attitudes about the Tea Party movement, which began a year ago and gained stature after [Scott] Brown’s upset victory” in last week’s Massachusetts Senatorial race.  
 
Mark DeCamillo and Mervin Field pointed out in a Field Research Corporation Press Release dated Tuesday, January 26, that The Field Poll “asked a representative cross-section of California voters whether they had heard of the tea party movement and to what extent they personally identified with it.”
 
Two questions about the Tea Party movement were asked by Field’s pollsters:
 
·         “Have you seen or heard anything about the Tea Party protests that have taken place in the U.S. over the past year?”
 
·         “How much do you personally identify with the Tea Party protest movement – a lot, some, or not at all?”
 
In addition, a sub-sample was asked: “Some groups claim that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. What is your opinion? Do you think Barack Obama was born in the United states or not?”
 
According to Field, The poll was “conducted among a statewide sample of 1,232 registered voters in six languages – English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Vietnamese,” and it showed “that about 61% of this state’s voters say they are aware of the movement, and 28% say they identify with it either a lot (12%) or some (16%).”
 
While The Field Poll asked registered voters if they identify with the Tea Party movement, it didn’t get into what exactly “identifying” means. The questions make no attempt at defining – or even providing a bit more information – for the responders. They merely left it to the responders to decide what the movement means to them?"
 
Would the results have been the same if Field had pointed out that the movement is not only anti-tax, anti-debt, and anti-Obama, but some parts of it are anti-abortion and anti-gay? Would the results have been the same if Field mentioned that there are very few people of color and very few Jews involved with the movement?
 
Would three in ten California voters still have identified with the Tea Party movement if they had been presented with more facts about the movement?  Possibly so, but then we would know more about what it is that Tea Party identifiers actually identify with.
 
“The predominant view has been that this is largely a movement coming out of the conservative side of American politics, and most have identified the Tea Party largely as a white, non-Hispanic phenomenon,” said Mark DiCamillo, vice president of The Field Poll. “It’s not surprising that ethnic voters are less aware of it.”
 
One could argue that in all likelihood many of the same three in ten that identify with the Tea Party movement also don’t think that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen. A reasonable conclusion might be that a large part of this new Tea Party movement is made up of the same old conservative network.       
 
“On the heels of [Scott] Brown’s grassroots success [in Massachusetts last week] Tea Party organizers spent last weekend strategizing about other high profile national races,” the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jor Garofoli reported.
 
Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns for Freedom Works, a conservative Washington D.C.-based organization active in the Tea Party movement, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the question about Obama’s birthplace “is a distraction.” Steinhauser is hoping that the new poll will auger well for Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who is hoping to be the underdog victor in June’s Republican primary so that he can take on Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer in Novermber . 
 
The Chronicle’s Garofoli reported that “Although the Tea Party movement is decentralized, there are believed to be 40 to 50 Tea Party organizations in California, ranging in size from a few dozen to several hundred supporters. In the Bay Area, there are a total of about 5,000 supporters. There are a dozen such groups in the Los Angeles are.”  
 
However, Ron Nehring, chairman of the California Republican Party, may have hit the nail on the head: "The world is run by those who show up,” Nehring said. “Tea party activists show up and that's important."