Teabaggers Are Just Angry Republicans

The Republican right-wingers and their propaganda arm, Fox News, have gone to great lengths to have the American people believe that the teabaggers are an independent movement made up of people across the political spectrum. They are trying to do this because they want people to believe there is a growing majority movement that doesn't like what President Obama is trying to accomplish.

If the teabaggers were an independent group separate from the Republican Party then you could add their 16% of the population to the approximately 35% of the population that claim to be Republican and it would make over 50% of the population. But that's either a Republican dream or a hoax -- I believe it's the latter. The fact is that the teabaggers are funded and organized by the same right-wing groups that have been helping the Republicans for years.

Even more important is the fact that rather than being separate from the Republican Party, the teabaggers are just an angry element within that party. That means if you add the teabaggers to the Republicans you are really counting the same people twice (and double-counting does not make a majority -- just a fraud).

This is brought to light by a new Gallup Poll. The results of this poll is shown in the chart pictured above. It shows that the difference between beliefs professed by the teabaggers and those by Republicans are miniscule. When asked whether the above 10 issues were "extremely serious threats" to the future of this country, there is very little difference between answers given by the two groups.

Even more important is the fact that at least 79% of teabaggers (4 out of 5) identify themselves as Republicans (and I would bet most of the other 21% regularly vote for Republicans). Teabaggers are not an independent group. They are just Republicans angry over losing in 2008. They voted Republican in 2008 and will do so again in 2010. When a teabagger runs against a Republican it is nothing more than an intra-party squabble.

This should give Democrats some confidence because it means the true independents (those who split tickets and have voted for both parties) are still up for grabs. The teabaggers are not made up of these true independents. Teabaggers are right-wingers who would never vote for a Democrat while independents are moderates who vote for both parties.

That is why the teabaggers will have little or no effect on the 2010 election. They have always been Republicans and probably always will be.