Rep. Israel slams the tea party: 'The House is in range' for Democrats

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on Wednesday said that Democrats had a chance to take back the U.S. House because voters' opinion of the tea party movement had soured.

"Here is why we lost in 2010," he told CBS News political director John Dickerson. "We lost 9 million independent voters in districts throughout the country. They were with us in 2006, they were with us in 2008. In 2010, a tsunami election, many of those independent voters supported a tea party Republican. Now they have deep buyer's remorse."

"They did not know that when they voted for a tea party Republican that that tea party Republican would spend more time trying to figure out how to shut down Planned Parenthood than how to open up a small business," Israel explained.

"They did not know that when they voted for a tea party Republican that that tea party Republican would insist that we can't afford to subsidize student loans, but we can afford to make permanent the Bush tax cuts for people who are earning over $1 million."

He said the policies of the tea party Republicans had "backfired" and independent voters were returning to the Democratic Party.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner (OH) told Fox News this week that "there’s a 1-in-3 chance that we could lose" the House.

"The House is in range," Israel said.

Watch video, courtesy of CBS News, below: