"Occupy Wall Street" More Popular Than Teabaggers

There are those who want to compare the teabagger movement to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Personally, I don't think they are anything alike at all. The teabaggers were a reaction to the Democratic victory of 2008. They were funded by and directed by right-wing organizations (such as FreedomWorks) and they are little more than a dissatisfied segment of the Republican Party. They tried to paint themselves as a grassroots movement, but never truly were one. Meanwhile, the OWS is a real grassroots movement and has little respect for either political party. They want a real change in the political and economic systems -- not just a change in which political party is in power.

And it looks like the American people also see this difference between the two groups. A couple of recently released polls shows the American people approve more of the Occupy Wall Street movement than they do the teabaggers. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey was the first to point this out. The survey was done between October 6th and 10th of 1,000 adults with a margin of error of 3.1%. Here are the numbers for both groups:

TEABAGGERS
Positive...............28%
Negative...............41%
Neutral...............21%
Don't know...............10%

OCCUPY WALL STREET
Positive...............38%
Negative...............18%
Neutral...............25%
Don't know...............20%

The poll not only showed the OWS movement with a higher positive rating, but they also had a lower negative rating. In fact, more than twice as many felt positive about OWS than were negative, while the teabaggers had a significantly larger negative rating then positive.

Yesterday the Time Magazine/ABT SRBI Poll was released, and it also showed much the same thing. This poll was done on October 9th and 10th of 1,001 adults (no margin of error listed). Here is what that poll showed:

TEABAGGERS
Favorable...............27%
Unfavorable...............33%
Don't know...............40%

OCCUPY WALL STREET
Favorable...............54%
Unfavorable...............23%
Don't know...............24%

Once again, the OWS movement has twice as many people viewing it favorably as view it unfavorably, while the teabaggers have more people viewing them unfavorably than favorably. Right now, neither of these groups is large enough to have much effect on the country in creating change. But the OWS movement is still new and is still growing -- and it has at least the potential to grow much larger. Meanwhile the teabaggers have leveled off, and may even be running out of steam. It has no real potential for growth (in spite of the millions that right-wing groups have spent to prop them up).

This gives me a bit of hope for this country. It looks like most Americans can still tell the difference between a real grassroots movement demanding needed change, and a politically-motivated movement that just wants to return the Republicans to power.