Scottie Nell Hughes of the Tea Party News Network says it is not surprising that people don't want to identify themselves as tea partiers, considering how much they are demonized.
CBS News released a poll Wednesday in which just 15 percent of Americans said they support the tea party movement. After the midterm elections in November 2010, that number peaked at 31 percent.
That mirrors a
Gallup poll released in early May that found that tea party support among Republicans has also dropped significantly since November 2010 — from 61 percent to 41 percent now.
"People might not want to identify themselves as tea partiers. Why would you when we're being demonized?" Hughes told J.D. Hayworth and Morgan Thompson on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV. "I mean if you want to combine somebody who's a racist, a homophobe, someone who hates dogs and grannies and kicks them out into the street, that's what they've done to demonize the tea party brand."
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However, Hughes says the tea party movement is winning in terms of changing the conversation.
"We need to be talking about the message, and that's where the tea party is winning because we're making those in office having to talk about the issues that Americans care about," she said.
"There's a reason why immigration is not in front of the Senate right now. Ask Mitch McConnell the reason why it wasn't brought up. He knew that it would kill him within his race," she added.
Hughes is author of
"Roar: The New Conservative Woman Speaks Out," which she said she wrote because of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's likely presidential candidacy in 2016, and the fact that men will be criticized anytime they say anything negative about her.
"We know that the men across this country cannot sit there and speak anything about her, we're already seeing it, they're demonized," she said. "Whether or not you agree with the comments that were made the other week by Karl Rove, it just shows how quickly that the men are going to be pounced on regardless of what they say about her."
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