A Look At Connecticut's Tea Party Voters

Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown is scheduled to campaign in Connecticut for Republican hopeful Linda McMahon on Saturday.  Brown was an early Tea Party favorite who won the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in January.  A recent Wall Street Journal poll finds that nationwide, Tea Party supporters make up nearly a third of all Americans who expect to vote this November.  But who are Connecticut’s Tea Party voters… and will they make a difference?   

Protestors stand across the street from the Stamford Marriott Hotel during President Obama’s recent visit on behalf of U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal. They hold signs reading Block Blumy and No Blumen Way. 

They’re members of the CT Tea Party Patriots and they’re angry about big government  in Washington and Hartford.  "We are running in Connecticut a 4 billion dollar deficit and both parties, I said both parties, Republicans and Democrats,  have been going up there, borrowing a million dollars a year to balance the budget…"

Jenny Ezzell is a grandmother and Tea Party activist from Lisbon, Connecticut. "We’re really about educating. We look into the issues. Right now we’ve been doing federal issues but now we’re starting to look at some of our state,  here in Connecticut issues, informing people what’s in the bills."

She says Connecticut residents need jobs. And she blames unemployment in the state on an anti-business climate created by incumbent politicians.   Ezzell says most Tea Party members agree with her. "And the surprising thing is they’re not all Republicans.  I’m out in the 2nd District and time and again. I’ve had people tell me I’m a Democrat and I’m not voting for any Democrat in our District.  And I’ve had people who are unaffiliated. I’ve had people who are Independent."

Many Tea Partiers are first time activists. They’re economically diverse, a mix of young and middle-aged voters.  Quinnipiac University Political Science professor Scott McLean says you can see their influence in Connecticut’s tight Senate race between Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon. "The sense of anger at Washington and establishment politicians really does know no party lines. But having said that,  it’s a movement that clearly tilts to the right side of the political spectrum. And Linda McMahon has done very good job of reflecting those feelings among Tea Party voters.

But McMahon and the Tea Party are not an easy fit.  In several interviews the candidate has appeared to distance herself from certain Tea Party views. She also told the National Review Online earlier this year that she “probably would not join a Tea Party caucus”.

Fergus Cullen is the  executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy in Hartford, which describes itself as a free market think tank and aligns with libertarian ideals.  He says state Republicans ought to take the Tea Party seriously. "Because these people are almost as dissatisfied and upset with Republicans as they are with big government coming out of Democratic control in Washington.  It reminds me very much of the Perot movement from the 1993 to the 1995 period of time."

And Cullen says there’s a lesson when  comparing Tea Party activists to the earlier movement.  "That is to say, two years later, many of them were frustrated by the lack of change and many of them became disillusioned and checked back out of public life."