Tea partiers have been saying for years now, (yes the movement is years old as it started in 2009) that the tea party isn't just made up of hard-core right wing republicans who hate Barack Obama as the mainstream media would have everyone believe but that it is in fact made up of people from all different age groups, races and even political backgrounds.
The Washington Post has finally drawn the same conclusion, but downplays the "impact" of democrat-tea partiers when it comes to election time:
Is there such a thing as a tea party Democrat? The answer, it seems, is yes. Polls show the group exists, but determining its impact is difficult. What role the group could play in the 2012 elections is even murkier, except as a rallying cry for Republicans who say the movement is a bigger tent than it appears.
Recently, Republican leaders have gone out of their way to make the argument that the tea party is more than just a group of (somewhat) disaffected Republicans who are angry about government spending they perceive to be out of control and the large size of the federal government.
Republicans contend that the tea party movement, which surged in the 2010 midterm elections, includes not just Republicans but also independents and Democrats.
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, tend to dismiss the tea party as a bloc of voters who are bound to vote Republican.
And polling backs up the idea:
There are a significant number of Democrats who claim to be part of the movement. Often, that number is somewhere around 10 percent.
The Winston Group, a GOP polling firm, last year showed that 13 percent of tea partyers were Democrats; Gallup put the number at 15 percent.
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