Tea party losing support, but Mitt Romney is still pandering to them

Used up.
  There's a new ABC News/WaPo poll on public opinions of the tea party. The results (PDF) aren't great for the movement.

All told, 41 percent of Americans identify themselves as supporters of the movement, compared with a high of 47 percent last September. Forty-five percent oppose it; 14 percent have no opinion. Support has dropped disproportionately among young adults in that period, down 20 points from 51 percent to 31 percent.

So the kids today don't like them. Yes, shocking. This is probably worse news, though:

Fifty percent of Americans say the more they hear about the Tea Party, the less they like it; just 27 percent say they like it more. [...]

And while it's strongly supported by 32 percent of conservative Republicans, the movement is strongly opposed by a much larger share of liberal Democrats, 62 percent. The two groups are similar in size. [...] The Tea Party has a gender gap, with 13 points more support from men than from women. And it does best with 30- to 49-year-olds, tailing off with under-30s and those 50 and older alike.

So support is dwindling, at least everywhere but in the Republican primaries, where crabby middle-aged white guys are treated as royalty. Even so, Mitt Romney's still courting them. Monday he spent time at a Tea Party Summit in Philadelphia, doing the usual meaningless pandering to the group:

"The economy is struggling because the government is too big, and we're going to bring it down to size," Romney told about 400 cheering people at the event organized by the Independence Hall Tea Party. "This campaign is going to be fun. The contrast could not be greater."

President Obama "doesn't understand the power and importance of economic freedom," Romney said. "I just don't think he understands what makes America such an exceptional and successful nation."

Sure, whatever.

A few days ago Romney went in front of the National Rifle Association and paid homage to all their most deeply held conspiracy theories about how Obama not doing a damn thing to take their guns is proof positive of a secret plan to take all their guns later, and now he's countering the notion that he's out of touch by going to a tea party event and saying tea partyish-things to them, even though the tea party is a net negative with the country as a whole. Sure, what the heck. I guess he's technically still in the primaries, even if his only remaining competition is Ron Paul and a traveling zoo aficionado.