SHARE THIS SHOW:
RELATED CONVERSATIONS:
RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is viewed by some people as a prominent voice in the Tea Party movement, but this Friday she's coming to Eugene as a guest of the Lane County Republican Party. In Oregon, the GOP and the Tea Party seem to be on relatively amicable terms. This could be because the Tea Party hasn't endorsed any candidates here, as they have in other states, such as Florida, where they've been accused of dividing conservatives.
The Tea Party is a grassroots political movement that started in early 2009 with some coordinated protests against the bank bailouts. The group identifies as nonpartisan, but a recent poll shows their members lean pretty decisively to the right.
Where do Republicans and Tea Party activists overlap in the Pacific Northwest? How have you responded to the Tea Party movement?
Tagged as: republicans · tea party
Photo credit: jasohill / Creative Commons
-
How have I responded to the Tea Party movement…
Well, I have the exact same reaction as when I respond to the Democratic Party; I burst into hysterical laughter, and then I cry for the fate of my grandchildren! -
America is not a three party political system. The greatest effect of a third party is the spoiler in a close election. And the result may be diametric to the interest of the third party. Example is the 2000 Presidential Election of Geo Bush vs Al Gore. The results ultimately lay with the state of Florida in a VERY close race--537 Votes in over 10 million cast. Ralph Nader of the Green Party spoiled it for Gore.
A right wing Tea Party arguably may undermine future Republican candidates and NOT help Conservatives. It is the Law of Unintended Consequences. Having a fumbling figure like Sarah Palin in headlines will also do much to consume all the oxygen in the room for more competent, viable, and serious Republican candidates. This may be the best gift the Obama presidency could hope for. Maybe they should become a contributor.
Let Time be the test of the Tea Party. See how next year's 2012 Congressional Elections treat the Democratic Majorities: I predict they will increase slightly. And the medium term test: whether Obama wins a second Presidential Term in 2014, which I see as highly probable at this point.
By the Way I am a Coffee drinker, much like the rest of the city. Tea does little for me. But I will switch to a Pinot Noir or a Beer Party on Saturday nights.
-
maybe Oregon has a different election cycle than the rest of the country?
I don't really think you are two years behind the rest of us, though.
-
I've been going to Tea Party protests for a little over a year now. At the outset, the movement was simply a response to out of control government spending. It was not a strictly Republican movement, and it was not directed at Democrats or Barack Obama. [Local Libertarians and Ron Paul supporters actually held a similar protest against the first bail out bill on the 27th of September 2008 at the Sandelie Golf Course in Wilsonville while George Bush was still in office.]
Since I've been involved with the Tea Party, a number of groups have tried to coopt the movement for their own purposes. Some people have attempted to make an actual political party out of it, more than a few candidates have courted it, and it seems that the Republican Party views the movement as its own. Unfortunately, the press also seems eager for it to become something it was never intended to be. Apparently, government spending just isn't an interesting enough story for political analysts to dwell on.
-
It's obviously not JUST about government spending, otherwise the Tea Party would have existed during the Bush administration... remember, he got us more in debt as a nation than any other President in our country's history.
-
The new-ness and crazy energy of the tea party naturally attracts people who are jaded and bored with politics as normal. The initial energy of any petite "revolution" or movement is exciting. The tea party kind of catches that energy from old white Republicans and people who never had any patience for regular politics.
Governing is a difficult, complicated process. The basics of state government are budgets and public services. The more detailed you get in studying government, any flash and excitement gets covered by committee meetings, lengthy drafts of complex dcuments, and, compromises to meet the needs of competing points of view.
Can the tea party supply us with actual leaders? Perhaps, however, there are no elected "tea party" people yet. There is no coherent "tea party" philosophy other than collections of random slogans and the odd reference to the U.S. Constitution. Maybe the tea party process will produce somebody who can enter government and be effective at some level instead of just disruptive.
I do not count among these potential leaders Mrs. Palin or Mrs. Bachman, who are just Republican opportunists trying to run out in front of a parade and claim they are leading it.
-
One of the most common reasons I have heard from members of the Tea Party for their more radical rantings against President Obama is that it is a response to the same kind of name calling done against President Bush at his public appearances. Does anyone remember the 'Free Speech Zones' that the Bush administration used at every single public event he attended? Any protestors were never within sight of him. How would Tea Party members react to being rounded up and placed in 'Free Speech Zones'? It is not hard to imagine how ugly that situation would become.
-
It's amazing to me that any group would select Sarah Palin as their poster child. That's a solid indicator of the intellectual level of the Tea Party. Aside from that, it's pretty obvious that the Tea Party is composed of the most conservative of the conservatives, and their agenda reflects that. I tend to agree with President Obama that the Tea Party is made up of all of those conservatives that insisted that he didn't have a valid birth certificate.
-
I'm glad the Tea Party exists - hopefully they will pull votes away from mainstream GOP candidates and give them to their Constitutionalist and Libertarian candidates. But really, the Tea Party is a Fox News invention. Interview after interview with attendees at Tea Party rallies proves this, as the uninformed masses spew Fox News talking points and lack any substance to back up their claims.
This is one of my favorite examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbyFeFhUTmI&feature=player_embedded
They deny the tax cuts, contradict themselves, and say things like they stand for "freedom."
-
One question I've heard asked of Tea Partiers, but never answered, is why they never spoke up during the Bush years when he expanded the government and took us to war by borrowing money (largely from China), when he threatened liberties through the "patriot act". Seems to me it all started when a Democrat, who happened to be black, was elected as President. They say its also about the "health care reform bill" (which is really a health insurance reform bill largely based upon what was done under a Republican governor--Mitt Romney--in Massachusetts). So, please honestly answer the question of WHY now?
-
The Tea Party Movement is rife with an underlying Hate theme that is undeniable. However small the numbers, the sentimentality is not lost on me, as an African American.
This whole "Tea Party" thing is reprehensable to me. Why weren't these people protesting when Bush was giving tax cuts to the rich and sending us in unbelievable debt? Does the strength of this "movement" have something to do with Obama's election?
This isn't covered enough by the media, and frankly it send shivers down my spine. ANY "movement" that gives racists and hate speech ANY legitimacy is dangerous. If this goes as far as I think it could, I feel I will become an ex-patriot one day. I cannot live in a place where I feel unwelcome. Even if it's my own country.
How is this more interesting or important than Earth Day? Blechh!
-
How do you justify Sarah Palin making rape survivors pay for their own rape kits, Fox News lying about Obama's nuclear aggreement with Russia when Regan wanted a nuclear-free world, & are you really white supremacists?
-
I keep hearing that the Tea Party is made up of reasonable people with sensible demands, and there seems to be some evidence of this. But then how come Sarah Palin is so popular among them? I cannot take her seriously, so I cannot trust this group.
-
provoking hyperbolic Left/Right schism - no champions of Obama or Palin cite the insanity, cost or horror of the endless Global War Of Terror, serving Only the Global Finance Oligarchy
-
I wandered by the Tea Party shindig in Corvallis on 4/15. My goals were basically:
1) Find out who they were
2) Find out what they know, as distinct from what they think they know
3) To the extent that there was a gap, provide information
4) Thank them for taking the time to care and be active
It was a bit depressing.
1) Overwhelmingly older folks, mostly with family members
2) They thought that Obama was "socialist", responsible for the national debt, and some even thought he was a dictator despite having been democratically elected by a larger margin than his predecessor, and this irritated them greatly.
2) Although most of them received Social Security and Medicare, not a one thought that they were "socialist", nor did they want those programs eliminated. They thought "OmamaCare" was "socialist" despite the fact that it isn't even single payer, much less single provider.
3) I told them that SS and MC weren't savings accounts, but wealth transfers from one generation to the next. From me to them, for instance. They were unmoved. I told them that there are three dozen countries who all pay less for health care, get better overall public health results, and cover all citizens. Some are socialist, some not. Wouldn't it make sense to spend less, get more and cover more people? NO!
4) At the end, all were quite respectful when approached that way.
-
I wish you had had this thought about the national debt BEFORE you had children. I will be expected to pay for your kids' education. These liberal social programs like public education will bring this country to its knees.
-
so what costs should the government cut ??? social security ?? medicare ??? medicaid ??? what about the military ?? that's where most of the money goes to, shouldn't we cut the spending there ??? what do we do with the people that need those services ?? what do we do with all the people that are going to retire and have no savings ??? ship them to an island and let them die there??? don't you think that increasing the tax rates on the richer people would help the society as a whole ??
-
The Tea Party movement is not "grass roots" It has been very carefully choreogrphed by people with vested intests.
It's interesting that these "less government " types hold their meetings in public parks ,use fire and police servies and love their Medicare and Social Security.
The deficit...!! The war, started by using lies and deceit by Bush administration, is the largest underlying cause. Without this and the egregious spending by Bush we would still have the surplus that greeted him when hecame into office.
-
I have seen what the Tea Party stands for, smaller government, lower taxes, balanced budget, etc.., but no where have I seen a plan for how those goals are to be achieved. There seems to be no desire to outline just how the government will be reduced in size, how the national debt will be paid, and how "freedoms" will be "restored". The movement seems to have only one true goal at the moment, that of expunging Democrats and centrist Republicans from Congress and the White House. Until someone representing the Tea Bag party can begin to outline how they will solve problems rather than exploiting them to win political talking-points, their party will never be taken seriously.
-
The tea party is worried about the national debt. So, please ask how do they want to solve it? There's not enough discretionary spending to cut to balance the budget.
In the last years of the Clintion administration, they were actually paying down the debt. How did they do that? So would the tea Party welcome Bill Clinton back as president?
-
Smaller government? Don't take Social Security. IF you lose your job, don't take unemployment. If you become disabled, don't apply for Social Security or any kind of State disablity. If you're a miner, or an oil worker, or someone in a very dangerous job, don't worry, without all those regulations, you'll lose your lungs or eyesight, or a limb soon---and remember, there won't be any backup for your either. Don't expect to breath clean air! Don't expect to have clean water. Don't expect anything at all except what you can get for you and yours. That's what the tea party will bring us with their idea of "smaller government." Sad
-
Since the size of the deficit is the major issue for the Tea Party activists, I assume they are working very hard to rein in the military budget and to get the US out of the 2 wars it is in. These areas are the major expenses fueling the deficit for the past several years.
-
Please ask your guest about the Obama tax cuts for the middle class. If the Tea Party is all against taxation, what's their issue with Obama? He's cutting taxes for the middle class!
-
The Tea Party to me seems like a well organized, well funded group of people with such varying messages that it approaches hypocricy. I know taxes are a big issue with the group. My questions would be; Did Sarh Palin use state funds to bring healthcare to her and her familiy? Do U.S. Senators and Representatives sympathetic to the Tea Party Group take Government run Healthcare availabe to all Government employees? Do they drive on the roads? There is a deep well of hypocisy in their rhetoric.
-
The Tea Party to me seems like a well organized, well funded group of people with such varying messages that it approaches hypocricy. I know taxes are a big issue with the group. My questions would be; Did Sarh Palin use state funds to bring healthcare to her and her familiy? Do U.S. Senators and Representatives sympathetic to the Tea Party Group take Government run Healthcare availabe to all Government employees? Do they drive on the roads? There is a deep well of hypocisy in their rhetoric.
-
I am more interested in funding. How is the Tea Party funded?
As to the Tea Party relationship or over lap with the Republicans is it not the same for the Democrats.
They are a distraction that has no effect one way or another.
Besides stirring emotions, we should be more interested in following the money.
-
The burden we're placing on future generations with our debt to China is insignificant compared to what future generations are already going to have to deal with as a result of climate change. Why won't the Tea Party realize there are problems in this world far more important than money?
-
The Tea Party, a way too glamorous moniker for a bitch-fest. How they ever got propelled by the media I can't fathom, I realize it is perhaps necessary, but it is rather unfortunate you have chosen to do a show about it. This is the one case where the media helped create the group through excess, undeserved, coverage. No one even knows what the tea party is. Know why? 'Cause it isn't anything real. It is a myth, a re-branding by a bunch of disgruntled, angrier then normal Republicans, and Republicans who don't like labels. That is exactly why it isn't worth the coverage, because it is nothing new. The only good thing about the Tea Party is their name.
-
While I commend the Tea Party movement for elevating the discussion of getting our financial house in order, I have yet to hear any specific ideas from them as to how they would accomplish this.
Any sober assessment of debt reduction must conclude that true change can only result from reducing spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Defense. Everything else is merely window dressing.
So my question to your Tea Party guests is: What are the Tea Party's specific suggestion to reduce the debt in a meaninful way?
-
I appreciate your guest's inspiration. I too had a two year old son in December 2008. And, I too had sleepless nights about his future. My concern, however, was not about his limited choice and income. My worry was about the environmental challenges he will face. The burden of climate change and environmental degradation is much worse in my mind than that of financial depravity. What does the Tea Party movement have to say about the environment?
-
Freedomworks is not a grass roots organization. That needs to be mentioned. Funded by big $ folks like Dick Armey.
I think the Tea Party is a dangerous thing. It is not good for America it is not good for Oregon. It might be good to get people some better advocating skills, but otherwise, is a serious waste of time and our attention. The planet, esp. on Earth Day needs discussion on how we're going to continue to survive here together. Taxes will need to go up, not down. Tea Party enthusiasts have the ear of our media right now because they're so outrageous. Well, the solutions to climate change are going to take sacrifice. Are tea partiers willing to make those sacrifices? Doesn't look like it to me. They seem like a group of selfish babies, to tell the truth.
-
Regarding Republican ideas for health care (just mentioned on air), some are pretty strange. Specifically bartering for health care with chickens:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/04/health-care_reform_0
Really? Rather than adopt a universal health care system like every other industrialized wealthy nation (who all pay less, get better public health outcomes, and cover every citizen), we should pay our doctors with chickens?
Until realistic ideas come out of the far right, I'm afraid they'll continue to be characterized as nutters...
-
Your earlier guest glossed over the question of where the Tea Party was when we started two wars and Bush got the country in to debt. He turned the question back, which was not only immature, but he missed an opportunity to clarify the big headscratcher about the contraditions in this movement.
I would also add that there must be tea party followers who lack health insurance or could lose it if they lose their jobs. This is just one issue. And the question is, where are their solutions? Where are the Republican party's solutions? They can't deny that we have massive problems. But I haven't heard any solutions that take into account the present realities. You can be against something only for so long.
-
The Tea Party presentations my conservative friends send me are rife with racism and implied "rights" to keep everything they can pillage or purloin, with no reciprocal responsibility to the society that supplies their living.
"Taking the country back" is too plainly a desire to return to the time when blacks were lynched, women were subjugated, and the primacy of middle aged white bullies was unquestionable.
As for the ones carrying guns to peaceful gatherings, who are those cowards afraid of? Each other? Are they just afraid that more liberal and compassionate people might be as primitive as they?
-
The "free market" is what got us into the financial mess we are in now. There is widespread agreement among economists on both sides of the ideological spectrum that the "bailouts" were necessary to prevent implosion of our financial system. Henry Paulson, who found government intervention abhorrent, recognized the perilous situation the markets were in and did something to which he was ideologically diametrically opposed. Of course, since he did step in, we have no way of knowing what might have happened and the tea partiers are free to speculate.
Since the largest portion of our government expenditures go to military and entitlement spending, why is it we don't see them promoting cutbacks in those arenas?
As to health care, we were on a an unsustainable track the way we were going. US businesses find it difficult to compete with those in other countries because of outrageous health costs that continue to rise exponentially. As each year passes, more people fall lack insurance and more people file bankruptcy because of illness. What do tea partiers propose to remedy the situation?
-
The answer is not free markets. I will never trust free markets to provide for or solve any problems because citizens always get ripped off when regulation decreases. Business cannot be trusted. In America this has always been the case since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The size of government is large because the business elite and the power elite cannot be trusted.
So when you look at your child and wake up to reality (what took you so long) as what they will be shouldered with, you should stop and think about how much you consume and what you think you deserve. We are not free to do whatever we want. We have to work together to be in balance. There are other people on the planet, not just white 45 year olds or so. The tea party seems to be only concerned with individual wealth and not about those that are without.
Growth and consumption is the backdrop of the tea party movement not balance.
-
Sorry folks, for the up-and-down website. We're working on it.
-
IMHO.... The tea party is not a party, it is an astroturf political PR campaign mascarading as a movement. Recall at the time of its founding, it was "promoted" by Fox news. The first TP events were actively promoted on various pundit and news shows broadcast on the Fox News channel: there were banner graphics even with the phrase "FN Tea Party Protest." The FN stands for Fox News, and FN pundits repeatedly implored their viewers to attend these rallies. (The evidence is there, in 2009, in numerous Fox News channel video clips that were replayed by comedians.) It has served as a bullhorn for the pundits on the part of the camp exemplified by the likes of Beck, O'Reily, Limbaugh, et al. Throughout the year of its founding, it seems you couldn't find any gap between these pundit's rants-du jour and the "talking points" of the tea party.
Who writes their platform, who are their leaders, what is their funding, where is their "headquarters?" It's a disturbing illustration of how money and media can buy mind-share of the American public. It reflects poorly on American political discourse that this "group" / campaign has been given so much media exposure, completely out of proportion with the attendance at their events; oh, but since it was essentially founded by a media outlet, I guess that explains the exposure. The TP orchestrated a campaign not to participate in civil discourse, but to disrupt it; recall the "storm the town hall meetings" push in the summer of 2009. And the "birther movement." And the race-baiting, and the graphics invoking Hitler. As if. It seems like the group is just disgruntled people who don't want to accept that Republicans lost out in the 2008 elections.
I'd echo what other's have mentioned: where was the Tea Party outrage when the previous administration created a 1 Billion $ deficit by enacting tax cuts for the wealthiest, engulfed us in a second Iraq war, stood by while Wall Street deregulated itself into oblivion with leveraged derivitives and became too big to fail.
-
virtually forgotten: THE GLOBAL WAR OF TERROR - the most horrific, insane, phony, costly, provokative duping of all time - serving ONLY THE GLOBAL FINANCE OLIGARCHY
listen to yourselves fighting over education, healthcare, social services - standards in every other civilized society in the modern world - while being duped into paying for and feeding your progeny into the meat grinder of war half way around the world - a meat grinder that serves only global corporate interests and the financiers behind them
and the OPB on-air shills will not point to it - cannot point to it - their mission: maintain the status quo of national ignorance
DUPPED AGAIN!
-
I had begun to compose a longer comment which I hoped speak to the foundational claims of rightist political groups - be they today's Tea Partiers, Perotists, Goldwater-ites or Burkeans. As you can see, I've decided abandon the longer note preferring to keep it short if not simple.
Frankly, I found the entire hour to be a waste of time - from the perspective of garnering a more clear or explict understanding of "Tea Parties" policy goals. Both Mr Moore and the Republican Party's political professional you had as a guest offered no details, no "cause & effect" analysis of conditions concerning them and no prognosis of how a "Tea Party" member elected to office would operate in a role that demands compromise.
Viewed through the lens of the "perpetual campaign", the hour was informative in that both Mr Moore and your GOP operative guest demonstrated that they too have empbraced the "all campaign all the time" rhetorical posture of political professionals as well as professional PR & marketing teams in the employ of all US businesses - this latter group being far larger, more influential and more well funded than all political spending combined. I'll not, now, address the inherent self-contradictions of this posture and the rhetorical approaches of both of your guests - though it most certainly does merit close and extensive examination and comment.
In the end, I found the hour useful. Having had the benefit of an unfettered and uncontested hour upon one of our state's most visible (audible?) "soap-boxes", your guests remained true to type. Neither of your guests proved knowledgeable nore persuasive as advocates for their political projects as each remained steeped in their in-group tropes and misinformed rhetorical complaints that posed as "genuine" analysis.
Thank you for giving your guests the latitude, and "rope" of unfettered access to the public's airwaves (ironic, eh?), to hang themselves.
William of Portland
-
Why give so much time to a Fox News created 'grassroots' movement?
-
"Fiscal responsibility"
Both the representative of the tea party and the representative of the Oregon Republican party, used that phrase frequently.
My question is: how can you expect the government, "...OF the people, FOR the people and BY the people..." to be fiscally responsible when the people are not!
The financial institutions that corrupted the mortgage process, were not handing out those sub-prime loans to martians! Who was it signing their names on those mortgages that they either could not afford to begin with, or who made no effort to adjust their spending to align with that commitment, let alone put money aside into savings.
Who was it gladly playing the stock market, while that market convinced us stock price was the only valid measure of the quality of a company?
It seems to me that the political parties of all sides can point their fingers easily to the, "big bad government". But no political party is going to point fingers at the "Uber greedy", the "spend whatever it takes to be cool", or the, "buy now pay whenever" members of those parties.
We truly have the government we deserve.
-
Terribly unbalanced show. The host did not challenge any of the Talking Points. I know public radio has swallowed hook, line and sinker the whole Bush Era media idea of catering to the far right by removing any real discussion from the coverage. This was by far the worse example I've seen in quiet awhile. What's next the John Birch Society with only supporters allowed in the discussion and the rest of us can only call in sporadically and, of course, online where the website will crash . . .
-
Here's my twitter on the show:
OPB's Think Out Loud gives the Tea Party the entire show with no impertinent questions asked. Fair & Balanced?http://bit.ly/crx9Fb
BTW: The Politico just did an article about how the press has bent over backwards to cover this movement:
The tea party's exaggerated importance
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36185.html
-
How do I respond to the Tea Party? I dismiss them outright. I find it hard to take any group seriously when they're created by a media conglomerate such as News Corp. Those "tea party" people out there protesting? They aren't critical thinkers. They're sheep being herded by Rupert Murdoch and his cronies.
Get back to me when it's an independent group of people speaking with intelligence, a genuine interest of the well being of the public, and some rational solutions, rather than protesting with ugly statements that are rife with ignorance.
-
Jeff was being very disingenuious when he suggested that those on the Left who heavily critizied Bush's policies then were just soo accepting of Obama's policies now. As if us liberals & Leftists haven't been calling Obama out on [his] various broken promises, NOT closing that concentration camp in Cuba, NOT going nearly far enough in heatlh care, etc. Jeff himself admits to pretty-much being a mindless right-wing cheerleader during those tragic Bush years. And when the Pratiot Act was fist enacted, by Bush, he "didn't see it". Yet, he now critizies Obama for apparently extending the Patriot Act, while giving Bush a total pass for shoe-horning it into law to begin with!
I found Jeff to not only be disingenuious through-out his entire interview, but also dodging questions put to him, & turning questions around using lame diversion tactics as oppose to providing direct answers. I tried calling into the show earlier - I also wanted to ask Jeff if he'd be willing to state ON THE RECORD whether he accepts that Obama is a U.S. citizen born in the U.S. I really wish someone would've asked him that too. I kept hearing through-out the program about how there's such a "broad range of opinions" at these rallies. That's questionable. What's certainly true is that you WON'T find a broad range of ethnicity. The fact is, this tea-bagger movement is largely driven not by Obama's policies, but by naked racism & mindless hatred towards Obama himself! All of these tea-baggers who call Obama a socialist, marxist, fascist, nazi, etc. couldn't write a single paragraph on what those words actually mean. What they really want to do is call him the "N" word, but they know they can't do that. So they substitute "nazi" instead.
Btw, when a tea-bagger brings a sign to a rally that says "Keep your govt. hands off my Medi-Care!", that's not frustration - that's stupidity!
-
I think that ALL Government positions should be picked like jury duty. If the appointed personages pass all appropriate Security checks, then they have the job. And No man or woman may hold no more than a total of 2 positions and or terms also a set time limit. And this why I feel so; A politician that as held office for 8 10 15 20+ years in washington dc has No Idea what any issure means to the Father working on a the street corner in a clown suit waving Going out of business sale signs from 5 to 9pm for min.wage. Because the mills all CLOSED. The unemployment has run out. and his children are a hairs breath from losing there home. I see 2 classes the haves and the have nots, the haves have their own agenda take All You Can, while the have nots worry about paying the mortgage and making enough gas money!
-
Good for OPB for taking a thoughtful look at a much maligned popular movement.
-
Besides criticising whatever government did in the last view decades,
what solutions does the tea party movement provide??
I know the tea party people would like to reduce public spending and talk about the enormous national debt, created in large part by poor decisions of the previous administration, which was republican.
I also know the tea party movement is mostly republican.
I need some clarification and solutions from the tea party before I will start to listen.
-
Comments are now closed.
As you note, recent, in-depth polling reveals that the 'tea party' is simply an amalgam of mostly far right, older Republicans, who are wealthier than most of us, and for sure, more ignorant in spite of supposedly being 'better educated.'
Ignorant? Anybody who could possibly take Sarah Palin seriously as a candidate - with her outright lies, distortions, inaccuracies, deceptions and incompetence ('death panels,' the United States as a 'Christian' nation, taxes being raised.... ad nauseum) - obviously needs to retake a serious civics class or two to be re-educated about how our government functions.
Sarah Palin is, arguably, the single most inept political figure on the American national stage during my life time (me being a 58 y/o middle-aged white guy with a Masters' Degree).