A new CNN poll finds that about half of Republicans sympathize with the tea party movement. The other half either remain aloof or (5%) even express hostility. That second group of Republicans has received remarkably little media attention this cycle. Yet their man -- Mitt Romney -- has held steady in first or second place for the past three years.

Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November [2010].

With the 2012 presidential election fast-approaching, one has to wonder if the Grand Old Party will again manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The Obama regime has certainly greased the skids for a GOP win but will the Republican National Committee (RNC) engineer another defeat as it did with candidacies of McCain and Dole?

I caught the CBS News evening report tonight for the first time in about 2 decades. They led off with a report of Sarah Palin's speech in Wisconsin, and they of course provided liberal spin. They claim there were far more liberals (i.e. union thugs) than Tea Partiers (claiming the thugs surrounded the smaller Tea Party crowd).

Harry Reid apparently thinks he has a winning smear when he says that the Tea Party is driving Congressional Republicans. In his circle, association with the Tea Party is a bad thing. But is that true of Americans as a whole? This Rasmussen survey, published yesterday, suggests that association with the Tea Party movement is generally considered a good thing. 48 percent of likely voters say their own views are closer to those of the average Tea Party member than to the average member of Congress. Only 20 percent say their views are closer to those of the average Congressman, while 30 percent are unsure.

When John Boehner teared up like a schoolgirl last November on election night, it became clear to most of the folks who had cast votes that ultimately propelled him to the top of his profession that the Speaker in waiting had no clue as to what had just happened to propel him to that office.

The feminine pitch of Senator Reid's voice not withstanding, in the context of the heavily documented death threats and vandalism recently committed by Progressive Democrat radicals in Wisconsin, calling Tea Partiers radical betrays his apparently giant set of testicles.