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On HBO program Real Time, host Bill Maher took a few minutes to explain why the Tea Party is not in step with regular Americans. Maher used polling data to illustrate the fact that a majority of Americans disagree with the Tea Party on climate change, health care, immigration and gay marriage. Maher point was that the Tea Party does not represent the views of a majority of Americans.

Here is the video

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Maher said, “Now when I hear Christine O’Donnell say I’m you, I take it personally because I think back to how our love making was so raw and powerful it was hard to know where my body ended and hers began, but if I were you, I’d really want her to stop saying she was you. 86% of teabagggers think climate change is a hoax. That’s not you. Tea partiers want to repeal the health care law, but two thirds of Americans either like or want it to go further. 59% of Americans support gay marriage and civil unions. Tea partiers support traditional gender roles where men are in charge like Glenn Beck, and women are soft and emotionally fragile with spooky mood swings like Glenn Beck.” Six in ten Americans think illegal Mexicans should have a path to citizenship and be allowed to stay here, and the other four in ten are illegal Mexicans.”

The Real Time host continued, “Now I know that you tea baggers at home are already blogging, if Americans are like you Bill, then how come the Republicans are going to take over Congress?” Well first of all thank you for watching, I know there’s wrestling on another channel, and second to answer your question, the Democrats will lose because a) They never brag about their achievements, and b) They never get it, that these days you have to sum up your message in one succinct phrase like we’ll cut your taxes or here’s a photo of my penis.”

Maher went on to argue that Democrats could hold on to power by running on a campaign to legalize pot. He said that the legalization issue gets young voters to the polls, and it would give the Democrats wedge issue to get their voters to the polls. I think it is a moot point what the marijuana issue could do for Democrats, because politicians in both parties are so terrified of being painted “soft on drugs” that they won’t touch the issue with a hundred foot pole. Maher offered a great practical point, but practicality and politics are not often seen together.

Equally tied to their 2012 future is what is about to happen to the Republican Party if this slate of candidates wins in 2010. Due to the fact that most of the people who support gay marriage, climate change, immigration reform, and health care are not going to vote, 2010 is going to be contested in front of a non-representative electorate. In the days after the election this point will be ignored by the pundits and media types who will be trying to discern “the meaning” of the 2010 election.

While they are obsessing about the meaning, almost everyone in the media will miss the bigger point that by sending these candidates to Congress, Republicans will have sown the seeds of their own demise. In 2012, everyone else, who isn’t a Republican, is going to show up to vote, and they are not going to be inclined to support candidates who are anti-gay marriage, anti-immigrant, who want the health care bill to do less, and who think climate change is a hoax.

In a small low turnout election, the loonies can win. This is exactly what’s going to happen in 2010. Bill Maher is correct though, the loonies aren’t you, and when you see the direction that they want to take the country in, you are going to be very upset, and you are going to make sure that you, your friends, and your neighbors show up at the polls to reelect Barack Obama and repair the Great Mistake of 2010. Bill Maher was exactly right. The writing is already on the wall for the potential incoming Republican class of 2010, and he offered a better piece of analysis than viewers are likely to get on any of the cable networks on Election Night.

