and if so, what does that mean? when i was confronted with that, i said we don t really have a tea party here but we have people who are sympathetic. i think tea stands for taxed enough already, the people i have met who identified themselves with the tea movement are constitutionalists and promote american exceptionalism. so i think i can live with that. mike: you also had a very memorable reaction when i think people were speculating was your election a message to president obama. give me that line again because i thought it was absolutely brilliant. i forget but it was something along the line of yes, indeed, it is a message. mike: i thought it was great. i think you said i am the message and, indeed, congressman, you are. it is great to be able to call you congressman. i know you have only been there a few days. don t have time to change the
when you take all the numbers today as president obama and the democratic agenda supporter what is the message you take away from it? you continue to sort of push forward with a left-wing agenda or try to moderate a little? you have to remember, megyn the overwhelming majority that voted in the last election that voted barack obama voted for the platform and the promises in his campaign that he made to be taken care of by the american people. some of the american people have obviously changed their mind because of what is going on with the economy. and i feel in the next two years as the economy improves we re going to see those poll numbers change greatly. as a matter of fact there won t be a tea party if we had a great economy. megyn: is that true, lars? the tea party believes like in government hands-off. it s not all about the job, the tea stands for taxed enough already. the real beauty in tea partyers is they believe in what the founders believed in a limited federal governme
unee kweuf call to everyone in every political party in the country, tea party, republican party, democratic party, whatever, go to the people and get their voices, get their thinking. megyn: we know how the tea party stands. tea stands for taxed enough already. they don t want more taxes. what the debt commission is saying, is we re sorry, we have to. go are going to get rid of the mortgage interest deduction, a charitable deduction. they are going to get rid of a lot of deductions that are loved. they say we have to do it and cut federal spending otherwise we ll spend even more. now we spend 17% of every dollar toward paying down the debt. they are saying it s going to go up higher. reporter: and it will, and let s examine what they said in addition to that. that is how will they enforce the recommendations? not a single word about enforcing those recommendations, or levels of spending or levels of taxation. this is an important
you have begun to see them treat be treated with a little bit more respect. martha: and i think, it typically, this kind of right-wing idea, ideology has been much more aligned with social issues, when you look at the tea party, they are not screaming and yelling about social issues, taxed enough already, is what t stands for and is that a sent what tea stands for and that is what people across the spectrum can sympathize with and understand and that is what was overlooked, the issues as you say of the group are central to people s gz gruntalment and the woman we d disgru disgruntalme disgruntalment, what we heard from the woman yesterday, with the president. and, what you hear from democrats and the white house, is they are arguing, yesterday s president obama yesterday actually taking the point,
president of the n.a.a.c.p. has been saying we are not saying tea partiers are racist but we are asking them to denounce themselves from the racists who are attaching themselves to the tea party. you are seeing examples of tea party organizations and what mark is right about, it is hard to pin down there, are a lot of tea party organizations all over the country and when you have a movement, and maybe that is a better way to describe it, as, you know, the tea i m not sure what tea stands for and my understanding is taxed enough already and that is the basis for it. and there is no basis for it, you know, where there is a racial issue. it s not based in race one way or the other. there are all races involved. i do think, whatever organizations have formed, i do think it is right of them to denounce any kind of racism. kevin, let me jump in, because the tea party, the folks tea party folks would say