Social media wrap: Glenn Beck rally, Sarah Palin light up Google Realtime

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin lit up the newly launched Google Realtime instant search engine before, during and after their joint rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that pledged to "restore honor" to, er, something or someone or other.

A steady stream of about three Beck-related tweets every second appeared on the Twitter post tracker under the search phrase "restoring honor," which was the No. 1 topic on Google Trends for much of Saturday morning.

"Glenn Beck rally" and "Sarah Palin" also were top or near the top of  Google's "hot searches" category throughout the day. Beck is a conservative radio and TV show host while Palin is the former governor of Alaska and one-time Republican VP candidate widely believed to be exploring a run for president in 2012.

Google launched its Realtime function that allows tracking of individual tweets by keyword to much media scrutiny this week, but judging by its coverage of "real-time" tweets containing the phrase "restoring honor," it could be considered a successful....

Myth-busting polls: Tea Party members are average Americans, 41% are Democrats, independents

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 and the same side of his Democratic Party finally getting its chance to drive home a liberal agenda after eight years of Republican rule and six under a centrist Bill Clinton.

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. A Sunday poll -- actually three national phone surveys of 1,000 registered voters -- found that 17% of all polled, or more than 500, called themselves "part of the Tea Party movement."

"It's a good sample size," David Winston, polling director of the Winston Group that did the poll for an education advocacy group, told the Ballot Box blog of The Hill newspaper. 

The Tea Party adherents broke down 28% independent, 17% Democrat and only 57% Republican. Not coincidentally, this bipartisan breakdown has been the way that Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin has often described movement members as "commonsense Americans" worried and....

Will Searchlight and Sarah Palin fuel 'tea party' anger or organization?

Since "tea party" members at “Showdown in Searchlight” probably needed a few days to scrape dust off their cars, now might be a good time to discuss a more vital question than whether thousands of protesters swamped the Nevada town (which, indeed, they did):

Does the "tea party" movement have staying power?

It’s a question that we members of the “lame-stream media” (we heart you, too, Sarah Palin) have been pondering in recent days.

• The NY Times wondered whether the protest movement would survive after the economy rebounded, since a number of activists are unemployed. 

• The Journal looked at whether GOP races over-saturated with "tea party" activists might hurt the Republican Party.

• The L.A. Times examined Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s reelection campaign in Nevada, a high-profile test of "tea party" activists’ (potential lack of) unity.

Were there any clues in Searchlight? Perhaps. There was an impressive turnout – about....

Nevada Tea Party groups steamed at candidate: Jon Scott Ashjian talks about his upstart candidacy

On Saturday, the dusty Nevada town of Searchlight – population: 700 – will be in the national spotlight when the Tea Party Express launches a nationwide bus tour from the pit-stop that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calls home.

Headlining the self-proclaimed “conservative Woodstock”: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

It’s an appropriate venue for the newly minted TV star – the run-up to the Searchlight event has fueled enough drama for a daytime soap. One of the major plotlines is the emergence of a “Tea Party” candidate who, established tea party groups now fear, could split the state's conservative vote against Reid and hand the Democrat a victory. (Check out our story in Thursday's paper.)

How worried are the tea party followers? Tea Party Express released an online ad this week denouncing Jon Scott Ashjian, whose candidacy has also been challenged in court.

As a candidate, Ashjian is a mixed bag. He’s articulate and well-groomed, but is also saddled with debt – including a $200,000 IRS lien – and a lawsuit-checkered business record.

This week, the Nevada State Contractors Board revoked his license, which officials said also bars him from contracting work in California, Arizona and Utah.

If tea party drama is your thing, read on for excerpts from an interview last week with Ashjian, in which....

Obama's 2010 nightmare: razor-thin Democratic win

Tom Davis knows a thing or two about politics. The former Virginia Republican once headed up the National Republican Congressional Committee, which recruits, trains and supports GOP candidates for Congress.

Now retired from the House, Davis is teaching at George Mason University and leading the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership. He sat down Wednesday with Top of the Ticket and a small group of other reporters to handicap the 2010 elections.

His take: barring a major shift in the winds that now favor the GOP, "there will be Republican tsunamis" in the outer suburbs and among blue-collar whites who, he noted, proved critical to Republican Scott Brown's upset Senate victory in Massachusetts.

The good news for Democrats: "At least they're not Toyota." In fact Davis praised Maryland's Chris Van Hollen, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, for recruiting "self-funders," candidates who allow the Democratic Party to use its resources elsewhere while forcing Republican opponents to spend big bucks.

Speaking of money, Davis thinks it's the key to everything. Asked about the political potency of the Tea Party, he said Republicans would be wise to keep activists within the party's tent, to corral their electoral energy. "The Tea Party started a parade and now all of these politicians are trying to get in front of it," he said. But he doubted the movement could become a viable third party without attracting big dollars. "We're talking about tea, not latte," he said.

Obviously the congressman does not realize that the Starbucks Nation has moved on from Lipton. Still, he did bring first-hand experience to the stakes for President Obama in the 2010 election.

Citing the 1994 mid-term elections, Davis said the historic capture of the House by Republicans allowed President Clinton to pick and choose issues -- like welfare reform -- that could corral votes on both sides of the issue. "The worse thing for Obama would be razor-thin Democratic margins," he said, noting that in that scenario, neither camp would have political motive to work with him.

Davis, who passed up a Senate campaign in 2008 before retiring from the House, said he was enjoying life after Congress. Recently he bumped into former Virginia Republican George Allen, who was coasting to reelection in 2006 before being caught on camera issuing a racial epithet against one of his opponent's staffers. Allen asked Davis if he planned to take on Democrat Sen. Jim Webb in 2012.

“He kept saying, ‘I hear you’re running for the Senate.’ I told him, ‘Why would I do that?’… I told him, ‘George, it’s a disease. It’s Potomac fever.’ "

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Getty Images

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Dean Murray, first elected Tea Party activist, joins N.Y. Legislature Monday

The Tea Party crowd now has its first elected office holder.

He's Dean Murray, a 45-year-old Long Island businessman, who won a lengthy recount in a special election for a New York State Assembly seat.

Murray, a Tea Party organizer from the protest movement's very beginning last year, also ran on its anti-tax, anti-big government platform. He takes the official oath of office Monday.

While Tea Party supporters have played influential roles in other elections such as Republican Sen. Scott Brown's upset win in Massachusetts, others are now running in GOP primaries elsewhere. Murray is believed to be the first to take office. He'll have to run again in this fall's regular election.

As advised by Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin, Murray picked a political party, the Republicans. He defeated Democrat Lauren Thoden by about 160 votes out of 8,000 in the 3rd Assembly District of eastern Long Island that has been represented by Democrats for the past 13 years.

"Whether they are active in the Tea Party movement or not," Murray told Fox News, "we want a smaller government. We want fiscal responsibility. We want accountability from our political leaders, and we want personal responsibility."

Murray said he wants to take a Ronald Reagan-type common sense attitude to Albany, adding, "What this movement is about is ordinary citizens, taxpayers, hard working people who have just had enough."

During the winter campaign, Murray's opponents argued against him because, they said, his election would send a message well beyond the district's borders. Murray says he hopes so.

Speaking at a Republican Party fundraiser in Arkansas Tuesday, Palin said Tea Party activists must make a choice. "Which party will best fit you?" she asked. "And then because the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they're going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: 'R' or 'D'."

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Will the 'Tea Party' be very sweet to Nevada's embattled Harry Reid?

The burgeoning tea party movement has already put on a national convention, wooed some big-name backers and – of utmost importance in politics – shown some electoral swagger.

Now, according to Nevada uber-pundit Jon Ralston, it has qualified as a third party in third party-friendly Nevada and plans to field a U.S. Senate candidate.

For Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the senior senator from the Silver state who’s spending Presidents' Day gold-mining in San Francisco in his own Nevada dialect, this might take some sting out of another bad news day for Democrats.

Nevada’s got a big sagebrush rebel streak, particularly outside Las Vegas. Washington is....

Lou Dobbs abruptly quits CNN on the air -- video

CNN's outspoken and controversial anchor/commentator Lou Dobbs suddenly announced his retirement during his program today, effective immediately.

See the video below.

Dobbs, who's been particularly outspoken on the issue of illegal immigration, said the country's current problems require rigorous discussion based less on partisanship than empirical evidence. He said he'd been under pressure to take a new direction in his life (politics) and he was going to do so in an effort to help save what he called the country's beleaguered system of capitalism.

Over the past six months, it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us.

And some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most direct and honest language possible.

CNN, which isn't doing all that well in recent ratings anyway, has also been under pressure to....

Obama campaigns for conservative Democrat

President Obama is finding a new version of bipartisanship, taking time out of his busy schedule to speak at a fundraiser for a New York congressional candidate who makes no secret of his more conservative leanings.

Obama’s appearance tonight is on behalf of Democratic candidate Bill Owens, who polls show is running slightly ahead of a more liberal Republican and an even more conservative opponent. All three are sparring in a special election for the congressional seat vacated when Obama named moderate Republican John M. McHugh to be secretary of the Army.

The congressional race has become of microcosm of the political confusions that are rumbling through the major political parties this year. Democrats are split between liberal and conservative wings that are finding it hard to fashion common ground on key issues such as healthcare reform. While Republicans, wanting to keep the energy of conservatives’ unhappiness, are having a hard time finding a place for the moderates they need for electoral success.

The 23rd Congressional District is deep in upstate New York near the Canadian border and includes Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties. It has sent only Republicans to Congress since around the Civil War. Tonight, Obama is expected to speak well of Owens, who opposes a robust public option in the healthcare reform debate. He also opposes same-sex marriage, which is backed by Republican Dierdre Scozzafava, a New York assemblywoman since 1998. She is also pro-abortion rights. Among her supporters is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Complicating the picture is the Conservative Party, which has long outgrown its origin as a cat's-paw of the GOP to become the tail that often wags the feline, at least in New York politics.

On the conservative side, riding a wave of discontent with Democrats and moderate Republicans is Doug Hoffman, who opposes gay and abortion rights and sees himself as the true Republican, having gained the endorsement of the GOP right, including the Club for Growth, the Family Research Council Action PAC and even former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. How to deal with conservatives has become a key question for the national GOP after a summer of tea-party demonstrations and abrasive town hall meetings.

Because this is an off-year election, it is sure to be seized on as another straw in the wind for 2010.

– Michael Muskal

Speaker Pelosi throws cold water on resolution to honor Michael Jackson

Even in death, Michael Jackson has the power to create controversy.

During the Monday memorial service in Los Angeles, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee told the thousands of mourners in Staples Center (and the hundreds of millions of fans around the world, eagerly watching on television) that she would introduce a resolution in the hope of honoring the King of Pop for his humanitarian efforts around the world.

The Democratic congresswoman displayed a framed copy of the resolution she was proposing and insisted it would come to the floor.

On the face this would seem to be a no-brainer: iconic singer and long-time donor to charities gets a last recognition. Besides, anyone whose death can so monopolize the public arena should be a slam-dunk for a congressional resolution.

Not so fast, as The Ticket warned Wednesday in this item.

Some Republicans, including Long Island Rep. Peter King, said they had problems with the adulation pouring over Jackson. King, in a video posted on YouTube, called the....