Rove dismisses any similarity of Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street protests

Republican strategist Karl Rove shot down the idea that the rise of the Tea Party is at all similar to the Occupy Wall Street protests. 

Rove said early Tea Party gatherings were an expression of people with largely "mainstream perspectives" on the economy and deficit and constitution.

"What are these people for? To the degree that they're for anything it's left-wing nuttiness," Rove said Monday on Sean Hannity's radio show of the four-week-old protests. "One is a Constitution-loving, law-abiding people and this is a group of left-wing nuts whose goal it is to violate the law."

As the protests continue and new ones are popping up in other cities around the country, Democrats and Republicans appear to be taking opposing views of the protests. On Monday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out an email asking voters to sign a petition in support of the protests. Meanwhile, former Massachusetts Gov. and presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R) panned the gatherings.

"Don't attack a whole class of Americans, whether they're rich or poor, white or black. This isn't the time for divisiveness,” Romney said at a town hall in New Hampshire on Monday.