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Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit.

Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.

“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists,” according to several sources in the room.

Biden’s office declined to comment about what the vice president said inside the closed-door session.

Earlier in the day, Biden told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in trying to negotiate deals.

The vice president’s hot rhetoric about tea party Republicans underscored the tense moment on Capitol Hill as four party leaders in both chambers work to round up the needed votes in an abbreviated time frame. The bill would raise the debt limit by as much as $2.4 trillion through the end of next year and reduce the deficit by an equal amount over the next decade.

Democrats had no shortage of colorful phrases in wake of the deal.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) called it a “Satan sandwich,” and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called seemed to enjoy the heat analogy, saying: “the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.

The Vice President of the United States should immediately apologize. This statement is just BULL.

Rep. Mike Doyle should apologize as well.

I thought President Obama and the Democrats called for “CIVILITY” after the Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shooting?

Tea party candidates tweet more frequently than Democrats and even their generic Republican rivals.

That’s the finding of a study out of the University of Michigan, which surveyed 460,000 tweets over a three-year period from 687 candidates running for U.S. House, Senate and governor. 

Over the study period, tea party candidates tweeted an average of 901 times compared to 723 times for Republicans and 551 for Democrats.

“The conservative candidates—Republicans and Tea Party members—definitely used Twitter more visibly and showed a more coherent set of messages and topics,” said Eytan Adar, assistant professor in the School of Information and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “They also followed each other much more closely. I think it’s fair to say they were much more cohesive in a lot of ways and at the end of the day that makes for a stronger campaign.”

The study found that not only did tea party members tweet more often, but they retweeted each other and used hashtags more frequently.

The entire paper is here (Pdf).

We utilize graph and text mining techniques to analyze differences between Democrats, Republicans and Tea Party candidates, and suggest a novel use of language modeling for estimating content cohesiveness. Our findings show significant differences in the usage patterns of social media, and suggest conservative candidates used this medium more effectively, conveying a coherent message and maintaining a dense graph of connections. Despite the lack of party leadership, we find Tea Party members display both structural and language-based cohesiveness.

A top goal of the nation’s most influential national Tea Party group is to stop Mitt Romney from winning the Republican nomination for president.

Interviews with top officials at FreedomWorks, a Washington-based organizing hub for Tea Party activists around the country, revealed that much of their thinking about the 2012 election revolves around derailing the former Massachusetts governor.

“Romney has a record and we don’t really like it that much,” said Adam Brandon, the group’s communications director.

FreedomWorks is led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and Matt Kibbe, an economist and former Capitol Hill aide. More than 30 employees, as well as a fresh class of several interns, work out of spacious seventh floor offices near the U.S. Capitol. The group knows they cannot impose their will on the fiercely independent conservative organizers fueling the Tea Party. But they say the activist base is just as anti-Romney as they are.

Kibbe said in an interview that FreedomWorks has no plans at the moment to endorse an opponent of Romney’s in the primary. But others in the organization made clear they will devote considerable resources toward helping whoever emerges as the most viable Republican in the primary other than the putative front runner.

Brendan Steinhauser, who travels around the country meeting with activists as FreedomWorks’ top liaison to the grassroots, said most people he talks to are “definitely trying to stop Romney.”

The Tea Party in 2012 will have one or two choices: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachman or former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Bachmann for sure is running and Palin, as of today looks like it, but may wait until the late summer to announce.

Either of them will give Mitt Romney a race in Iowa and South Carolina. I, only see Palin, should she run, going beyond South Carolina at this point.

About half of Americans, 47%, now have an unfavorable image of the Tea Party movement, the highest since it emerged on the national scene.

Gallup began tracking Americans’ views of the Tea Party in March 2010, when 37% had a favorable and 40% an unfavorable view. Those views stayed roughly the same through January of this year, but have now turned somewhat more negative. The April 20-23 USA Today/Gallup poll finds favorable opinions of the Tea Party movement dropping to 33%, from 39% in January, and unfavorable opinions rising to 47% from 42%. Twenty percent of Americans say they haven’t heard of the Tea Party or have no opinion of it.

This is not surprising to me, especially since Gallup’s tracking is about one year too late. The Tea Party first began prior to April 15, 2009 and here is one of my first posts on the Tea Party.

The GOP took over the House of Representatives thanks to the Tea Party in 2010, after having lost control in 2006. Now, the Democrats and organized LEFT have been able to counter and paint some in the Tea Party as either racists, white supremacists or right wing nuts of some sort.

So, you have two factors depressing the poll numbers: lack of fear of TOTAL LEFT control of Congress and the Presidency AND organized opposition to an unorganized and amorphous Tea Party.

You ask whether the Tea Party then has any future utility? Or will it be rolled in part into the GOP?

The answer is probably a little yes on both.

The Tea Party movement has no official status as an organization or association. It is not officially connected with the Republican Party. Still, Tea Party candidates who ran for the House and Senate in last fall’s midterm elections for the most part ran as Republicans. And Tea Party candidates who were elected to the House are now making their voices heard in Congress as they pressure House Republican leadership to take strong conservative positions on such issues as cutting government spending and reducing the deficit.

While Americans who identify as Republicans and conservatives clearly tend to be favorably predisposed toward the Tea Party, these attitudes are by no means universal, underscoring the challenges House GOP leaders face as they try to reflect the interests of their constituencies.

The views of Republicans split 60% positively to 24% negatively toward the Tea Party; conservatives’ views split 56% to 29%. Substantial majorities of Democrats and liberals view the Tea Party unfavorably. Views of the Tea Party became more negative between January and April among both Republicans and independents; there was very little change in Democrats’ already negative views.

So, what are the implications?

The precise influence of the Tea Party movement on U.S. politics is difficult to pinpoint, given its vague shape and lack of any type of official organization. The Tea Party, however, did have a significant influence on last year’s midterm elections. Candidates who were supported by voters who identified with the Tea Party made a significant impact on primary outcomes, and in a number of instances won election to the House and Senate.

Now observers continue to ponder the impact of those elections on the Republican Party, as these newly elected members attempt to follow through on their campaign promises and pressure House leadership to take stronger conservative positions on key issues.

The data reviewed here demonstrate the nature of the political challenges Republican congressional leadership faces in responding to Tea Party-supported members. A majority of rank-and-file Republicans nationwide give the Tea Party favorable ratings, but a sizable minority say their opinion is unfavorable or do not classify themselves as supporters.

Further, the overall image of the Tea Party among all Americans has become substantially more negative than positive over the last several months, which could weaken its perceived clout among GOP congressional leaders. Americans’ negative views of the Tea Party contrast with their much more balanced views of the Republican Party, measured at 44% favorable and 47% unfavorable in the same April 20-23 USA Today/Gallup poll.