Confession time has arrived. It was probably going to get out sooner or later. Yes, the rumor is true. I have actually attended a Tea Party rally … and on my own volition.
Well, it wasn’t a rally as such. And it wasn’t the Tea Party, just a lower-case tea party. The 3-year-old hostess didn’t much care about her guest’s political failings. As soon as Grampa Johnny agreed to put down the remote, he got invited to Eleanor’s tea party.
We didn’t discuss how to take back our country. We stuck with nonpartisan issues like who gets chocolate tea with raisins and who gets vanilla tea with Cheerios. Using our indoor voices, we enjoyed conduct clearly more civil than what you see in some adult town hall meetings across America.
Had Eleanor been more willing to discuss politics, I would have noted that the Tea Party is really starting to make a big splash these days, although not always for the right reasons. You could say the 2-year-old movement has officially arrived now, because its ratings in the polls have dropped as low as those suffered by both political parties. Last week’s CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll revealed that 32 percent of respondents view the Tea Party favorably and 47 percent see it unfavorably.