How Does the Tea Party Help Republicans?

I've been mulling this question over while watching Republican incumbents in primary after primary fall to the Tea Party candidates and I can't see that they help the Republicans at all. In fact, the whole GOP is tacking to the right to embrace the Tea Party for fear of extinction. So why is it that all the polls and pundits are convinced that the Democrats are doomed on Election Day 2010?

It's all really a matter of common sense. The Tea Party is basically an extreme, conservative group to the right of the Republican Party. Regardless of the spin they try to put on the demographics of the movement - that they are equal parts Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are tired of the status quo in Washington - we know better. The chance that even conservative Democrats in the general election would flock to vote for a Tea Party candidate is slim to none. And knowing that Freedom Works is basically behind the Tea Party movement, I view it as the political equivalent of the Frankenstein monster.

If anything, we are witnessing angry Republicans not only fearful of the evil, Kenyan, socialist, Marxist, Nazi Obama, but upset with their own party and knocking them off in the Republican primaries with candidates who are at the least inexperienced, and at worst, the fringiest of the fringe who think Social Security is unconstitutional and continue the myth that Social Security is bankrupt, want to privatize Social Security and Medicare, because as you know, Wall Street bankers will protect your assets, and forward blatantly racist, anti-Obama emails.

And yet we keep hearing (literally just now I heard this as a bumper on MSNBC) that "the Tea Party is proving it can shape the political landscape and will have a huge impact on the midterm November elections."

Let's face it, Democrats will mostly likely vote for Democrats. Republicans will most likely vote for Republicans, even if that means they have to cast a ballot for Christine "Masturbation Is Bad" O'Donnell or Carl "Humans are Racist" Paladino. But the Independent voter, the voters that swung for President Obama in 2008, don't normally ride the crazy train.  And I don't think they'll punch a ticket for it this time either.  Hell, even the GOP party chairman said O'Donnell has no business running for dog catcher, let alone US Senate. And evil spawn Karl Rove is calling some of her comments "nutty" for which he is getting backlash from Wingnuttia.

So maybe the Tea Party really is reshaping the political landscape for the November midterms, but in my opinion it's coming at the peril of the Republican Party. Eight of the Republican Party backed establishment candidates lost to the Tea Party challenger. And although Republicans have no choice but to support the primary winners (even after saying they wouldn't) the fracture in the GOP is clearly visible.  They have just as much to lose as any Democrat in office.

Yes, anti-incumbent rage might cost some Democratic seats in the House and Senate just like it does after every midterm against the majority party incumbents whose party controls the White House, but I don't believe it'll be anywhere close to the devastation that the pundits are predicting, because the one thing all the talking heads keep dismissing in all of the analysis is the quality of the candidate.

Adding... Maybe all the wingnuts winning Republican primaries are just what the Democratic doctor ordered to gin up the base and finally get some enthusiasm rolling.