Poll Reads Tea Leaves, Finds Caffeinated Irritability
Despite their crushing defeat this weekend by failing to murder a piece of legislation, that Tea Party isn't sulking at all. Instead, that health care bill getting passed just made them angrier. They're like a hive of bees who are seeing their honey being socially distributed to everyone who didn't earn honey in the first place.
Indeed, they are the angriest bunch of voters out there, according to a recently released Quinnipiac poll, which shows that while they are the most displeased voting bloc, they are also a small minority.
But far from minorities! 88 percent of respondents who said they were affiliated with some kind of tea party movement are white. 74 percent of them said they were Republican (or leaning that way), and 55 percent of them were women. Okay, that last bit is actually is a surprise.
The guy who put this all together doesn't see this movement as being entirely helpful to the Republican cause. Lay it on us, Peter Brown!
The Tea Party could be a Republican dream - or a GOP nightmare. Members could be a boon to the GOP if they are energized to support Republican candidates. But if the Tea Party were to run its own candidates for office, any votes its candidate received would to a very great extent be coming from the GOP column .
Well, that's true. A third party is always going to cut into the winnings of the existing party it most closely represents. Which is why if this body is going to be sustainable and prove the Governator wrong, they're going to need some kind of footprint in the political world and try to usher candidates into state and local offices, rather than swing for the Capitol Hill fences right away.
If this truly is a grassroots movement, then they better start there.
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