There's a saying among the left (as a counterpoint to the "liberal media" meme) that the facts have a liberal bias. What's interesting (and maddening) is how intensely the low-information voters on the right believe the liberal media nonsense, and purposely ignore those facts. These people (mostly Tea Partiers) definitely have been showing up at the polls during the primaries. The question is: how will they number during the general, and will they be able to sway the moderates and undecideds?

They showed in droves yesterday. Most notably, they replaced a respected establishment Republican in Indiana (Dick Lugar R-IN) with am extremist Tea Partier:

In West Virginia, Democrats (yes - Democrats) voted 40% for a convicted criminal currently in jail in their primary, giving the president only about 60% of the vote. WV is not an open primary state, so voters must be registered as Democrats to vote in the Dem primary. If this is how the Dems vote, it's a little scary to think about the Republicans there.

The other big news item is Amendment One in North Carolina. The measure which amends the state constitution to declare that marriage between one man and one woman to be the "only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized" passed with 58% of the vote. The state already had a law banning gay marriage, but this puts it into the state constitution. By it's wording, it also negates legal benefits and laws protecting unmarried couples. Watch for an uptick in domestic violence there as abusive men in unmarried relationships realize they can beat their girlfriends with impunity.

What's puzzling is how this Tea Party-driven anti-Obama ferver is at odds with the facts. The economy is improving enough that we actually ran at a surplus last month, and studies show that - on cumulative average - jobs actually increase more under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents. There's also the fact that Osama bin Laden was finally neutralized under President Obama's leadership, and we have prevented terrorist attacks by using good old fashioned infiltration.

What's Romney to do? He tries to brush off the bin Laden capture as "even Jimmy Carter would have done it", even though even Rumsfeld wouldn't when he had the chance. Romney is also trying to trying to take credit for GM's success, which is such completely blatant bullshit, that I don't think even FAUX News is willing to take that and run with it (we'll see). Despite congressional Republicans attempts to make President Obama's first term a failure, he has succeeded nonetheless.

Where Romney needs to careful is within his own party. Ron Paul is using the system to his own advantage, so much so that he is ammassing delegates to the convention from states where he did poorly like Maine and Nevada. It's a brilliant (in an evil mad scientist kind of way) scheme, and sure to create fireworks at the convention.

Will any of this matter to the Republican voter? Probably not. They are in "anybody but Obama" mode, so all these little facts are ignored. Ron Paul hews close enough to their agenda anyway, so they'll look at that as "grass roots" validation of their beliefs. Grassroots... from a supposedly anti-government guy who's been collecting his paycheck from the taxpayers for decades.

My apologies if that little fact has a liberal bias. Here's hoping the reality of the independent voter is based on these facts, and not the fiction as espoused by the Tea Partiers and other Republican factions.