US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?

[PanzerJaeger]

If there is a large group 14% who are voting lockstep, that is more then enough to make a huge impact when elections are often won by less then a couple of percent.

Keep in mind the vast majority of Tea Party voters were solid Republican votes before the movement began and their electoral success largely had to do with a shift in independent voters away from the Democrats. Their intensity does have a major impact on primaries, though, and can even be detrimental as was seen in a number of senate elections during the 2010 cycle.

That's what I was talking about earlier in relation to the regional support for the Tea Party. They ran candidates all over the country and enjoyed varied levels of support that were not particularly regionally correlated, but those candidates had a higher chance of winning in the South because more districts in the South are predisposed to pull the lever for (R) regardless of the name in front of it.