If you’ve been watching the news over the past week, you’ve seen several stories about teabagging and tea parties planned for tax day, April 15. Depending on the channel you watch, you may have picked up the double entendre of the verb “teabagging“. The link is to urbandictionary.com with the multiple definitions of teabagging so you will understand why some TV hosts laughed or could barely keep themselves from laughing when discussing this topic. See the following videos for a demonstration:

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com collected the most reliable data possible about the true measure of the number of people attending tea parties, and with a lot of counting and recounting, his best estimate is about 300,000 people participated in tea parties in the U.S. on April 15.

Here is The Rachel Maddow Show take on the turnout (video):

Though Fox news made a huge deal out of the nationwide event, it turned out to be somewhat of a dud. 300,000 people couldn’t elect a governor in a state, let alone represent anything but a small fringe of the right wing. If conservatives are counting on these folks to help them win elections, they have a long way to go.

Liberals and moderates must pay attention to these wing-nuts because it is unlikely the GOP will remain in the wilderness forever, and neither will their wing-nut ideas. But, it doesn’t look like the Libertarians are going to help them out.

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