If the tea parties and angry townhall ranters had much of an impact on the "debate" over Obama healthcare, one would expect them to be crowing about it and one wouldn't expect to see things such as a Gallup poll showing the poll numbers of the plan mostly unchanged from the beginning of August to the end. One of the bellwethers when it comes to hackery is Ed Morrissey of HotAir, and he's not exactly crowing over any grand victories. One might expect a mainstream hack like Marc Ambinder not to write something like "How Obama Survived August" (link).

Now, that doesn't mean that the ranters and ravers didn't have an impact; without them, the Democrats might have steamrolled to victory. And, they might have gotten some concepts out there. However, overall, they had about as much of an impact as you'd expect from a tantrum.

The smarter thing - something that might help halt the U.S.'s slide into Idiocracy - would be if those attending townhalls had elected one or two experienced questioners to "interrogate" politicians over their plans. That would have had an impact on the careers of those who promote flawed plans, it would have encouraged others to promote better plans, it would have made the mainstream media look bad, and it would have helped us have a real debate about these issues.

Instead, the leaders of the tea parties and similar groups - including Glenn Reynolds, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity and other Koch family-linked groups, and all the rest - seemed to only be interested in fodder for cable TV (or struggling online equivalents). Their followers should find better leaders.