Most dictionaries contain entries for the word "privatize"

During the government shutdown fight early this month, Speaker John Boehner said "there’s no daylight between the Tea Party and me." According to our weekly Daily Kos / SEIU State of the Nation poll, it looks like he might be right.

Last Friday under John Boehner's leadership, the House of Representatives voted to privatize Medicare. So, we asked half of the respondents in our weekly poll if they "support or oppose privatizing Medicare." It turns out that while conservatives and Republicans oppose privatizing Medicare, self-identified tea party members favor it:

Q: Do you support or oppose privatizing Medicare?

While self-identified Republicans and conservatives are more favorable to the idea of privatizing Medicare than the country as a whole, a plurality of each group still opposes the idea. As such, it would seem that John Boehner and House Republicans are governing more for the tea party than for even Republicans and conservatives.

Interestingly, we also asked the other half of the respondents in our weekly poll if they "support or oppose shifting responsibility for Medicare from the government to the private sector?" This is, of course, the exact definition of privatizing Medicare. While the country as a whole was still solidly opposed, Republicans and conservatives actually liked the when it was phrased this way:

Q: Do you support or oppose shifting responsibility for Medicare from the government to the private sector??

Given this, maybe it's inaccurate to say that the tea party is further to the right than Republicans and conservatives on privatizing Medicare. Perhaps self-identified tea partiers just know what "privatize" actually means, while that definition escapes many other Republicans and conservatives.