Like I said, it's not a reflection on your argument either way, I just found it ironic. I do have to say though, I wish you'd type a little more slowly 'cos I frequently find myself having to decipher what you mean. I know you've got other stuff going on so I haven't mentioned it in a while, but there's got to be a happy medium between your volume of typos and the embarrassing amount of time I spend online.

The Tea Party likes his bill fine now that it the balanced budget amendment that makes it a copy of theirs; the Senate just didn't like it. The current question is whether the rest of House Republicans will like Reids bill now that it has ALSO has a balanced budget amendment that makes it little more than CC&B Mark III, and whether Pelosi can sell the SS and Medicare cuts if they don't. I suspect what Boehner will find is that the Tea Party is so committed to a balanced budget amendment, spending cuts and no tax hikes that they'll vote for it even if it includes defence cuts many of them regard as wasteful spending in the first place.

Considering how much of the Tea Party sneered at Kerry (and Dukakis before him) as natives of "Taxachussets" I don't think they're all Democrats (which probably isn't great news for Romney). It's not state prejudice, its prejudice against the policies prevalent in that state. You're right about his problem, but you're speaking of it in terms of the nomination and I'm speaking of it in terms of the election; if you're worried the Tea Party (or Republican) libertarian "wing" and independents won't nominate him, imagine how the entire electorate will respond (bearing in mind that about 40% of them are liberals in the first place). It's the same arithmetic Bush faced: Get TX, the Solid South, 2/3 in FL, PA and OH, then hope you can run the table in the rural West, because New England, the West Coast and most of the Mid-West won't touch you. Unfortunately, places like NM, AZ and VA are making that math increasingly hard to satisfy. As to the media making Bush a social conservative, it's not the medias fault he responded to a national debate question by saying Jesus was his favorite philosopher, that he told a rally God wanted him to be President, that he addressed the nation from the Oval Office to say the government wouldn't fund stem cell research, or that he only got re-elected (if you accept the '04 OH returns... ) because the national GOP got the local parties in six battleground states to put gay marriage bans on the ballot and turn out the base. Bush was seen as a social conservative because that's what he is, and the only difference between him and Perry there is that Perry might even be WORSE, and more shameless about it. That, and after eight years of Bush the nation doesn't want any more leadership from anyone remotely associated with him, rightly or not.

Since you mentioned polls though, Political Wire cites one from Fox last week that shows Perry doing quite well; he's only 3% behind Romney nationally, and with Romney only 6% behind Obama that means Perry could hold Obamas victory margin to double digits! Except in head to head polling Obama apparently DOES beat Perry by double digits. That poll IS a week old though; here Political Wire cites a newer one from ABC and the Washington Post that puts him "fifth among tea party Republicans nationwide with 12 percent support, about half the level of Bachmann, who was the favorite of 23 percent". He's running fifth with the people he MUST get to be nominated, and he can't be inaugurated without being nominated.

That what you're telling the Tea Party, too? 'Cos, I mean, please don't; this isn't really the best time for them to visit. Our SYSTEM doesn't favor two parties, the current STRUCTURE does, but in case you missed it, the current structures complete detachment from the public interest and complete inability to conduct public business is what has so many people upset. We're not talking about amending the Constitution here, we're talking about reforming a system that requires half a billion dollars to run for President while guaranteeing 2--and ONLY 2--people out of 310,000,000 will get the public to pick up most of the tab, with PACs and megacorps providing the rest. Most people don't WANT that to be systemic, find the very prospect discouraging and alarming. Defending the hopeless status quo undermines your conclusion that conservatives ironically want change while liberals don't.

With 73% of the public saying they want upper class tax hikes and 80% saying they don't want Medicare and SS cuts I'd say the public definitely wants change, and that maybe Republicans shouting, "SOCIALISM!" is the best thing Obama has going for him. However, if he doesn't actually start delivering even the mild socialism he promised instead of more corporate handouts, social spending cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy, that still may not be enough to get him re-elected.

Yet that and the strong support for a balanced budget amendment are about the only good news for Republicans in that last poll. That the public's irate with Obama but twice as mad at Republicans ought to give you some idea of where the majority of the public is but, of course, it's a two party money dominated system: Pensioners and invalids don't make $1000 campaign donations, and as long as he stays to the left of Republicans Obama's the only game in town. You ought to be LOVING him; he's delivering tax and entitlement cuts plus corporate welfare, by promising socialism, which is about the only way you can still do it. Of course, the problem with a two party system is that the only way the public can rap his knuckles for breaking his promises is to vote in an even more conservative opposition, which is what we really saw last November. Taking that as a mandate, however, was naïvely foolish, but that's hardly surprising given the big winners were people so radical they can't even work with their own party leaders.