World News Korner

Even as the Republicans cave to Tea Party pressure the Teabagger's popularity drops to new lows with the American people.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Support for the tea party is nearly as low as it's been since the movement's creation, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.

Twenty-two percent of those polled consider themselves supporters of the tea party, while 27 percent of respondents say they oppose the movement. The remaining 51 percent say they're neither, or don't have an opinion. Those who say they "strongly oppose" the tea party also outnumber those who "strongly support" it, 17 percent to 11 percent.

Overall support is down 10 points from the 32 percent who supported the tea party in the days after the 2010 midterm election, and nearly tied with the record low support for the movement in late 2011, as measured by Gallup.

While Republicans continue to have the closest ties to the tea party, their level of support is far lower than it was in the movement's heyday. Thirty-eight percent of Republicans support the tea party, while 7 percent of them oppose it and a majority 55 percent is ambivalent. In November 2010, 65 percent of Republicans identified with the Tea Party.

Perhaps just as interesting is that the Teabaggers have the same issues with the Republicans as they have with them:

On the flip side, tea party members are less than unanimously pleased with the GOP; while 55 percent of members view the Republican Party favorably, 43 percent of them view it unfavorably.

"U.S. support for the Tea Party is at a low ebb at a time when key issues of concern for the movement -- funding for the Affordable Care Act and raising the U.S. debt ceiling -- are focal points in Washington, with Tea Party-backed Sen. Ted Cruz prominently fighting both policies," Gallup senior editor Lydia Saad wrote. "The discomfort he has created in the Republican caucus is merely emblematic of the ambivalence national Republicans feel toward the movement. Although few Republicans outright oppose the Tea Party, far more are neutral toward it than support it."

Sarah Palin recently claimed that Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and other Tea Party politicians have essentially become a third party. This is something that I have been hesitantly predicting for a few years now, but have always maintained that it would be an extremely dangerous and politically costly endeavor for the Republicans if it were to occur.

With the polling numbers so low it would seem that it is less likely than before, but so long as the Koch brothers and the Heritage Foundation keeping sending it money it will not go away completely. And who knows it just might prove impossible for the GOP to completely isolate them before their tentacles spread so far into the party that attempts to kill it may cost the life of its host as well.

Sounds like good news for the liberals.

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