So much for the Tea Party

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From a new Pew survey:

Since the 2010 midterm elections, the Tea Party has not only lost support nationwide, but also in the congressional districts represented by members of the House Tea Party Caucus. And this year, the image of the Republican Party has declined even more sharply in these GOP-controlled districts than across the country at large.

Oh, it's still a major factor in the GOP, of course. Republicans and Teabaggers, at least to the extent that they weren't one and the same (which they usually were, with big-money Republicans funding the Tea Party and Fox News, the GOP's main media outlet, pumping up the Tea Party at every opportunity), co-opted each other and now the GOP must live with its embrace of this extremist movement, just as it has embraced theocrats and other social conservative extremists as well.

The Tea Party may be in decline, but its legacy lives on. Voters would do well to think of that when they're casting their ballots next November.