Smiling While They're Getting Screwed

In a recent poll from Republican favorite Rassmusen, results showed that the teabaggers could really cause of problems with more "rational" members of the GOP.

Running under the Tea Party brand may be better in congressional races than being a Republican.

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.

And while the "non-affiliated" data appears to show that the teabaggers have a greater chance of gaining seats during the upcoming election, there is one piece of important data that Rassmusen has conveniently left out - that third-party candidates rarely ( if ever ) have a chance in national elections.

With all the hype that people like Sarah Palin, Doug Hoffman, Michelle Bachaman, and Glenn Beck get, the reality is that their neo-conservative brand of idiocy is accepted by a minority in America. It's a lot of special-effects and sound-bites that work well to get ratings, but it's hardly the combination of intellectual honesty, experience, and policy know-how that will be effective in a position of leadership.

But if the teabaggers want to try to push one of their rising stars as even a Congressional candidate, we're likely to see the GOP fracture even more and the Democrats historic losses during a mid-term election will be even smaller than predicted.