Teabaggers Are Unhappy With GOP Leaders

The charts above were made with information from a survey done by the Pew Research Center between September 4th and 8th. Some 396 Republicans were interviewed, with a 5.7 point margin of error.

These figures should worry Republicans, especially congressional Republicans who are running for re-election. While non-teabagger Republicans are not real happy with their leaders in Washington, with support only around 42%, that figure pales in comparison to the unhappiness with GOP leaders among the teabaggers. Only about 27% of the party's teabagger base approves of the job that GOP leaders are doing in Washington.

This could be a real problem for congressional Republicans in the primaries early next year (now only a few months away). Since only about one out of every four teabaggers approve of their congressional leaders, and those same teabaggers control the Republican Party in many states, a lot of right-wing Republicans could find themselves facing ultra-right-wingers in the primaries. And win or lose, this could benefit the Democrats.

If they lose to the ultra-right-wingers, the party could find itself with candidates (like Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and Todd Akin) that the Democrats could easily paint as extremists unworthy of being elected (because that's exactly what they are). And if the incumbents beat those ultra-right-wingers, they could find a lot of teabaggers becoming angry enough to stay home on election day in November (or vote for a Libertarian or another third party). Neither of those two scenarios is good for Republicans.

It looks like the Republican base still doesn't understand that the American public doesn't like extremists, and they are still determined to commit political suicide in the pursuit of ideological purity.