The Ultimate Hoffman Effect

If there's one bright spot in the GOP taking control of the House, it's that the conserva-schism between the country club Wall Street types and the Tea Party wingnuts has gotten bad enough now that for the first time a majority of Republicans now say a major third political party is needed in order to reflect their views.

Fifty-two percent of Republicans, and an even stronger number of Tea Party supporters, support the creation of a major, third political party, underscoring the occasional tensions between grassroots conservatives and the GOP establishment.

An overall majority of Americans, 52 percent, said that a third political party was needed; the most profound shift has come among Republicans.

The number of Republicans who said that a third political party was necessary was at an all-time high since Gallup first began tracking opinion on the issue in 2003. And while support for a third party has crept steadily upward in the GOP, for the first time, it represents a majority opinion.

Supporters of the Tea Party are even more likely to back a third party, the poll found. Sixty percent of Tea Party supporters back a third party, while 32 percent say the existing two parties are adequate. By contrast, 47 percent of Tea Party opponents said the bipartisan system is adequate, and 44 percent favored a third party. 

It's painfully clear that the Tea Party right finds the current GOP wholly inadequate in implementing their fundamentalist theocracy, and this is literally only after three and a half months of actual GOP control of the House.  It will be interesting to see how bad this split gets.  Many believe that no matter how mediocre the GOP candidate is in 2012, you won't see the Tea Party sit out the election like Democrats did in 2010.

On the other hand, if some sort of third party candidate shows up and pulls a Ross Perot, things could get very, very interesting.  Either way, expect the GOP to continue to lurch to the right on a daily basis.