Not surprisingly, according to the new NYT poll, a majority of tea party people have very divisive attitudes about race. 52 percent say "too much has been made of the problems facing black people." Jon Chait (subscription only):
The Tea Party is not racist. But it is an almost entirely white movement, largely driven by a sense that the government is taking money away from people like them and giving it to people unlike them, with "them" understood in a racial context.
Not to argue with Chait, but that sounds like racism to me, especially when it's coming from "wealthier" whites. Plus, there's abundant race-baiting among movement leaders -- Palin's not so subtle underscoring of the president's foreign-ness and his early career as a community organizer, for example. When these sorts of race-baiting dog whistles are rolled out, white tea party people eat it up. They love it. What else do you call that?
There's also the unspoken aspect to all of this: people are generally hesitant to tell a pollster that they're racist. Back to the NYT piece for what they say in lieu of it:
“I just feel he’s getting away from what America is,” said Kathy Mayhugh, 67, a retired medical transcriber in Jacksonville. “He’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction, I don’t care what he says. He’s been in office over a year and can’t find a church to go to. That doesn’t say much for him.”
And there you go.