For upwards of 12 months now members of the so-called Tea Party protest movement have been stereotyped, derogated and often dismissed by some politicians and media outlets.

They've been portrayed variously as angry fringe elements, often inarticulate, potentially violent and merely Republicans in sheep's clothing or disgruntled pockets of conservatives blindly lashing out at a left-handed President Obama....

Alas for stereotypes, they're convenient, often catchy. But not necessarily true.

Now, comes a pair of polls, including Gallup, that paint a revealing detailed portrait of Tea Party supporters in most ways as pretty average Americans.

Oddly, though, the polls cited by Malcolm don't say anything about whether the Tea Party activists are angry, inarticulate or violent--or whether they're motivated by racial resentment, which is another criticism frequently leveled at the movement. Instead, the polls mostly provide basic demographic information that is largely irrelevant to the "stereotypes" Malcolm cites about the Tea Party movement.

The polls do give some information about partisan and ideological identification--and on these measures Malcolm's account is quite misleading.   He cites a survey by the Winston Group, a Republican polling firm, that found that 17 percent of Tea Party supporters identify as Democrats as an indication that the movement has a "bipartisan breakdown"--and are therefore the "commonsense Americans" they are portrayed to be by Sarah Palin.  But at 17 percent percent, the Tea Parties would have about half as many Democrats as in the general population--and at 57 percent Republican, it would have more than twice as many Republicans.  That's actually not very "bipartisan."

And while the one poll got 17 percent Democrats, the other poll, by Gallup, found the Tea Party base was only 8 percent Democratic--one-quarter of the party's proportion in the general population.  That's less than the 12 percent of Tea Party supporters who told Gallup they support the new healthcare law--a proportion Gallup calls "a uniformly negative reaction."

As for ideology, both polls show Tea Party supporters are much more likely to describe themselves as "conservative" and much less likely to identify as "liberal" than Americans as a whole.

Most of these distortions can be laid at Malcolm's feet, but there's one misrepresentation of the polling data that Gallup has to be held responsible for. Malcolm accurately quotes Gallup's Lydia Saad as saying that "Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large" in terms of "race," among other demographic qualities.  But Gallup's chart indicates that 6 percent of  Tea Party supporters identified as non-Hispanic blacks--versus 11 percent for respondents in general.  Would a group that was 28 percent female be considered "quite representative of the public at large" in terms of gender? That's the claim that Gallup is making about the Tea Party movement and race.

(For more on these Tea Party polls, see Political Animal, 4/5/10, and Plum Line, 4/5/10.)

The announcement will come in the run-up to summer driving season, as gasoline prices have begun a national march toward $3 a gallon, and beyond that in California.... Energy companies and conservatives have clamored for increased drilling since gasoline prices spiked during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Like virtually all offshore-drilling coverage (CEPR, 9/08), the L.A. Times doesn't note that drilling in coastal areas will have only the most minimal impact on the price of gasoline--and even that trivial impact would be a decade away.  According to the federal Energy Information Administration, considered the authoritative source on energy, opening up the entire continental shelf of the lower 48 states would have virtually no effect on all on crude prices: "Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant." This information ought to be included in every report on offshore drilling.

See Extra! Update: "Failing to Do the Math on Oil:  Support for Offshore Drilling Increases Following Media Misinformation"  (8/08) by Hannah Dreier.

While that's terrible, the L.A. Times waits until the end of the piece to tell us that the L.A. Times does just a little better:

A companion study also examined local coverage by the Los Angeles Times during the same 14-day period. The report found that while TV stations used 1.9 percent of its news hole (minus ads and teasers) for coverage of local government, the Times used 3.3 percent of its news hole (minus ads and teasers) for coverage of local government.

The paper explains:

Embracing the progressive--and sometimes politically risky--principle that the cost of carrying out public policies should fall to the well-off more than the disadvantaged, both the House and Senate bills would place new taxes on the wealthy to help pay for expanded insurance coverage.

Since mostly people aren't "well-off," and raising taxes on the wealthy tends to be rather popular with most people, what exactly is the political risk here? Surely the article will tell us. Oh, here it is:

In a recent Associated Press poll, 57 percent of those surveyed favored taxing people who earn more than $250,000 a year to pay for the healthcare overhaul. Of a variety of financing options tested in the survey, that tax was the only idea supported by a majority.

In other words, the not-very-risky idea of raising taxes on the wealthy.