The dust has barely settled on the Tea Baggers’ Summer of Hate and yet a new poll suggests the right wing’s month-long tantrum in August has had little effect on the debate.

According to a CBS/New York Times poll released late last week, 72 percent of Americans want a government-run insurance plan as an option for people with low incomes or who insurance companies refuse to cover. Just 26 percent agree with the Baggers that government-run health care programs like Medicare are jackbooted socialism.

In June, before the start of the Bagger rage, the same poll [PDF] found that 20 percent opposed the government option.

So let’s recap. After a summer-long campaign in which insurance companies spent millions buying off pols in both parties and millions more on astroturf consultants … after all the death panel lies … after the town halls where elderly beneficiaries of government health care fell into spittle-spraying rage over a plan to provide government health insurance to younger people …

After all the barely concealed racism … after the comparisons of the president with bloodthirsty tyrants like Hitler and Stalin — men who deserved nothing less than death … after armed goons showed up at public forums threatening to “water the tree of liberty” with the blood of duly elected public officials … after the Baggers’ implicit threat that they would ignite civil war for no loftier goal than to protect the insurance industry’s annual $200 billion-plus in profits …

After all that, the health-insurance lobby and its pay-to-play caucus in Congress only managed to raise approval for protecting its profits among normal Americans by six points.