Another Messaging Problem For Democrats: 71% of Americans Think That It’s Important That Republicans Should Listen to TEA Party

It looks like the Democrats have another messaging problem. Despite the left’s attempt at trivializing and demonizing the TEA party for the past year or so, 71% of all Americans still believe that it is important for the Republicans to listen to the grassroots movement, according to a new Gallup poll:

About 7 in 10 national adults, including 88% of Republicans, say it is important that Republican leaders in Congress take the Tea Party movement's positions and objectives into account as they address the nation's problems. …

Although few Democrats (6%) are supporters of the Tea Party or even have a favorable view of it (11%), more than half say it is important that the Republican Party take the Tea Party’s positions into account. Why this is the case is unclear, although Democrats may simply feel that the opposing party should pay attention to all of its constituencies.

Perhaps underscoring the same principle, Republicans overwhelming feel their leaders should take the Tea Party’s positions into account, even though barely half are self-identified as Tea Party supporters."

This poll is especially telling, if you consider when the poll was taken. Ed Morrissey explains:

I’d somehow doubt that Democrats are really all that concerned about whether the GOP listens to “all its constituencies.” Their party leaders and the media spend most of their time sneering at the “teabaggers,” and dismissing them as cranks, or worse. The flip side to this analysis is that 44% of Democrats would think it unimportant for politicians to pay attention to their constituents, which seems unlikely to be the case.

“New survey” is somewhat relative. While Gallup published these results today, the survey itself was taken between January 14 and 16, within a few days after the shooting in Tucson and the media’s rush to smear the Tea Party as an unindicted co-conspirator. If those numbers were ever going to suffer, it would have been that week. Yet majorities in all party affiliations think that their ideas deserve important consideration, including 53% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and 88% of Republicans.

So, all of the left’s demagoguing and their attempt at convicting Palin and the TEA party for the Tucson Tragedy in the court of public opinion has fallen on deaf ears. Hopefully, the Democrats will stop their pointless finger-pointing, but I doubt that will ever happen. They’re hoping that if they repeat it long enough that people will eventually start to believe it, but they don’t seem to be having any luck.