my connection with the tea party

[kandrathe]

I see. It was just a side-track then, when you stated that "Some Tea Partiers are Republicans, Democrats and some are Libertarians".

It was just a statement, that the Tea party is diverse and not a subset of Republicans.

So, your answer to Eppie's claim ("This tea party, so I read, is mainly backed by a group of billionaires"), is that the existence of a Tea Party makes for more Democratic voters?

The existence of the tea party enables the Democrats to hold a majority since the TP platform(fiscal conservative, stricter Constitutional interpretation, small government, and anti-war) attracts away more Republican voters, than Democrat voters.

Is that meant as insinuation that the Democrats might be funding the Tea Party to get more votes?

In some cases, I suspect its the Republicans who are trying to prevent the erosion of their base. They financed big tea party rallies, or bus tours, then threw their endorsements to Republicans which successfully derailed much of the tea party. The Republicans picked the rally issues where they overlapped, such as the deficit, tax reform, against Obamacare, etc. In many places they co-mingled TP'ers with Republicans until the pied piper Micheal Steele, led them off to the 2010 elections. But, enough TP candidates were elected to change the dialog in the House.

But, TP'ers are against special interest money, "big government" regulations, and fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. I'd say Rand Paul is probably the quintessential TP representative.

As it happens, Democratic support has been dropping since around 2008 (see my earlier Gallup link).

That makes sense. Our politics are very polarized (bad and getting worse), so the tide of ill-informed, disgruntled voters blame the incumbents and vote for the party not in power. Obama's slogan of "Change" was one of eliminating Bush, who had been successfully demonized by democrats, and had ticked off many conservatives. People rally against the establishment, and vote in their candidate who now becomes the establishment. The next election cycle, they don't fully support their establishment tainted incumbent, who maybe wins a squeaker for re-election. So we've seen the political oscillation Kennedy/Johnson, Nixon/Ford, Carter, Reagan/Bush senior, Clinton, GWBush, and now Obama.

Now it's Obama's turn to be the demon, and he's being attacked by all sides for doing too much, and for doing too little.