>>>The tea party movement is about 3 things and only 3 things. Fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economic policies.
>>>
>>>Anyone claiming anything else is not a part of the movement.
>>
>>Hmm. Given that the tea party is not a political party per se I'm not sure *who* is qualified to define the manifesto. Wikipedia seems to show that the biggest common denominators are:
>
>>(a) 73% of Tea Party supporters disapprove of Obama's policy of engaging with Muslim countries.
>>(b) 88% approve of the controversial immigration law recently enacted in Arizona.
>>(c) 82% do not believe that gay and lesbian couples should have the legal right to marry.
>>(d) 52% believed that "lesbians and gays have too much political power".
>
>The source of those wiki items is a poll of 1,695 done by WISER in 2010 in May of 2010. Of those polled, 19% (~322) at catagorized as "True Believers". Thus, the items the wiki page lists under the "Views of Supporters" represent the views of 322 registered voters in Washington polled in May of 2010. Hilarious!
>http://www.washingtonpoll.org/results/June1_teaparty.pdf
>
>>Your three factors come further down the list :-}
>
>These are by no means a list of "factors" or a list of items by importance they are the result of a single insignificant poll. However, if you care to go further, here is another WISER poll from the same time. This one has a sample of 1,252 regestered voters and was taken at the same time as the above.
>http://www.washingtonpoll.org/results/MAY2010.pdf
>
>The 2 questions that appear common between both polls.
>52% The immigration law in Arizona which requires police to question people they suspect are illegal immigrants
>41% Gay and lesbian couples should have the same legal right to marry as straight couples.
>
>The numbers are closer to even but it's worth noting that the "True Believers" polled are on the same side of both as the overall majority polled.
>
>Have I ever mentioned how much I love Wiki "facts"? ;)

But it's on the internet. Surely it must be true!