>Beck is the most highly regarded individual among Tea Partiers.
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>No he is not. Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin are the most highly regarded individuals among Tea Partiers.
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>FWIW, I used to really like Glenn Beck, but IMHO, he has really gone off the deep end during the course of the past year. I quit watching and listening to him.

Everyone's popularity waxes and wanes. Palin is very much high on the list with this same TP group. With Beck and Palin, I suspect that its now mostly waning within the TPs. But Beck was very much a head honcho of the Teaps. Your dismissive attitude toward GB is - imho - comparable to the GOP's general attitude toward the Bush admin in the last month of his 8 year admin, in a "what took you so long to join the rest of us" manner.

This is a bit dated now (7/2010):

In Beck We Trust

Glenn Beck is the most highly regarded individual among Tea Party supporters of the people we tested. He scores an extraordinarily high 75 percent warm rating, 57 percent very warm.

This affinity for Beck came through very clearly in the focus groups. The only news source that participants said they could trust was Fox. Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity were cited as people who “are not afraid to tell it like it is” and support their arguments with solid facts. Beck was undoubtedly the hero in these groups. Participants consider him an “educator” (in contrast to the popular Rush Limbaugh who is an “entertainer”) who teaches people history and puts himself at risk because he exposes the truth. In the words of a woman in Ft. Lauderdale, “I would trust my life in his hands.”