Here's the real problem.

The people in that audience were hand-picked by the Tea Party. If you were a Democrat, you couldn't get in. Nothing inherently wrong with that because they were the ones organizing the debate.

But when it's your name on the marquee, you have to be prepared for what happens under that marquee and a couple of people inthat crowd gave the Tea Party a VERY bad name - don't know how long it'll stick but you can be damn sure there are political strategists who have that footage on the video equivalent of 'speed dial' to call up whenever they want.

Not too many people seemed to notice that Ron Paul said "No..." and was trying to continue when those few shouts of "Yes!" went up. (Jon Stewart, it might suprise you to know, DID point that out)

Just as the Republicans were risking being demonized as hating children with the infamous "trying to classify ketchup as a vegetable" debacle back in the early 1980s, the Tea Party risks having their credibility tarnished if not wiped out if they don't repudiate these kinds of things.

I'm kinda surprised Michelle Bachmann hasn't been tarred and feathered over her opposition to the HPV vaccination when she said she wanted to (paraphrasing) "leave that choice to parents" - with the logical follow-up being "Do you believe it's proper parenting to leave your children at higher risk of cervical cancer when a simple one-time shot will eliminate the one of the risk factors" or more inflammatory like "Why do you support exposing our children tohigher cancer risks?"

Policing your own. It's VERY important when it comes to credibility.