The tea party is closer to the center than the democratic leadership is. Yes you can find some issues where the polls don't favor the tea party but in the end of the day there are two facts to consider.

1. People want change and didn't get from the change guy. We have reached a strange point in history where the progressives want to keep thing going like they and the conservatives are demanding change.

2. The democrats are getting some traction using scare tactics on the debt ceiling but when things are over people just might notice that the dems were willing to take us the brink to score political points with their base by fighting a tax but the expires in less than a year and half. I know the polls say Americans want tax increases and spending cuts (real ones not those Reid pretend ones that even the liberal media has scoffed at) but show me a poll where they ask if they want to risk default over a tax cut that is set to expire before the current president leaves office and that was extended by the same people who are now demanding it be killed.

As for how hard it is to fix he US political system, I think that helps explain why Perry isn't considered a radical in Texas by his remarks that secession isn't such a bad idea. I know the left hopes to get some traction out of those statements but it will be easy for him to turn that around and explain he was simply pointing out something almost everyone agrees with, the federal government is dysfunctional.