Columnist for New York Times and their statistical expert describes Republicans as "hooligans."

Charles W. Blow of the New York Times describes Republicans as "hooligans." I hesitate to provide a link to this piece because I really don't want to reward this guy who writes the numbers column for the New York Times.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released on Wednesday, nearly 8 in 10 Democrats said that they favor “Barack Obama’s plan to reform health care,” compared with just 19 percent of Republicans.

Yet, according to a Gallup poll released last week, only 47 percent of Democrats said that they had a good understanding of the issues involved in the current health care debate. Fifty-eight percent of the Republicans polled said that they understood.

Furthermore, a Pew Research Center poll released on Thursday found that Democrats were the least likely to say that they were following the debate over health care reform “very closely.” Only 42 percent of Democrats said that they were, compared with 45 percent of the independents and 56 percent of the Republicans polled.

And while Democrats are sitting it out, Republicans are storming in. . . . .

Democrats should be leading this discussion. Instead, they’re losing control of it. That’s unfortunate because the debate is too important to be hijacked by hooligans.