In a classic example of what is either near-terminal naivete or a clueless attempt to stir up outrage and make news of a non-story, Politico revealed yesterday that they had documents and comments from the Republican National Committee that suggested that they planned to use "fear tactics" in their fundraising efforts during this year's campaign. Yahoo News and other outlets quickly jumped on the bandwagon, amping up the outrage over this blatant manipulation and disrespect for potential contributors.

While stifling a series of yawns I read the articles, and I'm left wondering what desert island the authors lived on for the last 50 years. The use of irrational fear to get money or votes is not just an old tactic, it's been the standard tactic of fundraisers and campaign tacticians on both sides of the political divide since politics was invented. I know, I used to have a job where I would call old people up and tell them that if they didn't give us money the Democrats were going to take away their guns and their pensions and make them learn Spanish.

These tactics literally go back forever. The Romans convinced citizens that the Carthaginians wanted to roast their babies alive in religious rituals to stir up popular support for the Punic Wars. Edward III convinced everyone that the Jews were responsible for the plague so that he could seize their assets to pay to get the crown jewels out of hock. The Sons of Liberty convinced Americans that the Quartering Act would put British soldiers in their daughters bedrooms. Lyndon Johnson won election to the presidency with a commercial which implied that Barry Goldwater wanted to nuke our children.

Anyone who has a job as a reporter or a political columnist and has only just discovered this or thinks that anything in these RNC documents is shocking, is too ignorant and clueless to be taken seriously. It would be more shocking if a political organization like the RNC was going to decide not to use fear to motivate contributors. Fear works. Fear motivates. This is because sometimes that fear is justified and it's easy to supply evidence that people of an opposing political philosophy are up to no good.

It's also disingenuous to suggest that these "leaked" documents says anything about Republicans and the RNC which isn't equally true of Democrats and the DNC. For every cheap shot the Republicans take at Obama or Reid or Pelosi the Democrats have an equally harsh criticism for Fox News or the Tea Party movement or Glenn Beck. While the RNC is telling their constituents that Democrats are communists, the DNC is telling their supporters that Republicans are corporate lackeys. The Democrats are going to take all our money and make us work for the government. The Republicans are going to shut down the unions and ship our jobs overseas. Two sides of the same coin.

All of these claims have a kernel of truth in the middle of them, which is why they work so well. None of them is the whole truth or a realistic analysis of any issue. You can't explore issues in detail in a 5-minute fundraising phonecall or on a 4×6 color postcard. They have to keep it simple, hit a few key concerns and move on. The more powerful the fear you play on, the more money and support you get.

What's more, the press is hardly innocent. They play on fear to sell newspapers or attract viewers for their advertising. They are in the business of manufacturing and merchandising scandal and outrage by presenting stories which make people afraid, including stories which stir up fear that political parties and their organizations are lying to you and unfairly manipulating the political process. This is what media empires have been built since before William Randolph Hearst told Frederic Remington, "you furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

This is the way the game is played, folks. If you find it shocking to your delicate sensibilities, then I suggest you don't play, and certainly don't pretend you're qualified to be a journalist. Politics is like making sausage and quite often the process is even uglier than the results. But please don't come back and tell me the answer is federally funded campaigns, because if you do I'm going to suggest that the RNC use that idea as the next thing to scare the old folks with.

I had an hour free this afternoon so I dropped in to visit the Libertarian State Leadership Alliance conference here in Austin to see what was going on and have a little fun.

What was going on was a schedule of meetings and planning sessions and a meeting of the national board of the Libertarian Party. Dry stuff, but I got to chat with some nice libertarians during a break, including the redoubtable George Phillies who is making another run at the party chairmanship, and I wish him the best of luck.

My main source of amusement for the visit was the distribution of flyers promoting Liberty Republican candidates in the Texas GOP primary. I would put them out on the flyer table and the next LP loyalist to wander buy would throw them in the trash. I’d snake them out of the trash and put them out again, then the next LPer would throw them back in the trash. It was fun, but futile, so following the best dictates of guerilla marketing I put them up in the mens restrooms where reading material is always welcome.

I also got to observe an amusing bit of irony when I saw yard signs for Libertarian candidates for governor Steve Nichols and Jeff Daiell, which featured the exact same design (see left), a reminder of how utterly meaningless it is to run for any major office as a Libertarian. They aren’t even trying hard enough to bother to think up their own sign designs. I suppose there’s not much point in working too hard on signs for a token candidacy to win a nomination which will give you a chance to capture a scant 1 or 2 percent of the vote in the general election. These campaigns aren’t about accomplishing anything or winning office, they’re about ego gratification and ideological posturing. They reminded me why I left the Libertarian Party. With dramatically declining membership and less and less money to work with, the party’s time has passed and it’s just going through the motions, rather like a chicken that keeps running around after its head is chopped off.

Whether they will admit it or not, the future of the liberty movement lies with the Republican Party, with both the good and the bad which that reality brings with it. I suppose that means that my flyers were kind of like rubbing salt in an open wound, but if my nose tweaking can wake even a few of them up, that will be step in the right direction. There are a lot of great people in the Libertarian Party and I hate to see them following the rutted path to oblivion.

As the Republican minority in Congress refuses to cooperate with just about anything the Democrats put forward which involves expanding government programs and spending money which we don't have, they make themselves targets for the criticism that they are "the party of no" and that they have no positive policies and only want to block everything so that the Obama administration will look ineffective and the great spending machine will grind to a halt and nothing will get done.

Yet when what the government is doing is incredibly harmful and destructive and the only proposals which the majority allows to reach the floor for a vote mean more deficit spending and more expansion of government power, when everything the majority is doing is so negative and puts our future in peril, then standing up and shouting "no" is a very positive act. In fact, the history of some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation is the history of people of principle saying "no" to the status quo, to abusive policies and to the excesses of government in the hands of people of bad intent.

The struggle for liberty is the story of brave people saying "no."

It is the barons at Runnymede saying "no" to rule by royal decree.

It is the Puritans saying "no" to a corrupt and oppressive church.

It is the Sons of Liberty saying "no" to taxation without representation.

It is William Lloyd Garrison and Abraham Lincoln saying "no" to slavery.

It is Teddy Roosevelt saying "no" to child labor.

It is Churchill saying "no" to the Nazis.

It is Rosa Parks saying "no" to moving to the back of the bus.

It is Reagan saying "no" to Soviet expansionism.

It is the moment when people of courage declare that they will no longer compromise and will no longer accept excuses and will no longer let liberty be bargained away and destroyed by inches. Saying "no" is declaring that you will no longer be moved and are ready to push back.

When the alternative is saying "yes" to the same old bad ideas, suddenly "no" becomes a very positive concept. Day after day the forces of oppression expect us to say "yes" as they waste our money, take away our rights, and imperil the futures of our children. The Kings of Congress and their media lackeys will talk about the "spirit of bipartisanship" and how progress demands that we cooperate to get things done and fix the nation's problems. But this is all just hogwash, because the things they want to do are just more of the same things which created those problems in the first place — more spending, more bureaucracy, more deficits, more waste, more cronyism, more ideological nonsense, more war, more internal security — none of it good for us as individuals or as a nation, so why should we say "yes"? Why would it ever be a good thing to say "yes" and just acquiesce to the rape of our nation?

What we need is more people saying "no" and saying it more loudly. Reject the hype and the fear mongering and the false promises. Saying "no" to government is one of the most positive things you can do. It gives you back control of your life and announces that you are willing to take responsibility for your own destiny. It's powerful and remarkably effective and it's the best weapon we have as individuals and as a people against the forces of tyranny including the tyranny of the status quo.

And maybe, if you keep saying “no” long enough they’ll start saying something you want to hear and can say “yes” to.

Since Ron Paul's campaign for president in 2008, the idea of the "Money Bomb" has become a staple fundraising tool of the tea parties, libertarians and liberty Republican candidates. A Money Bomb is a coordinated effort to raise money for a specific candidate on a designated day spread virally through the internet, passed on from person to person through Facebook and Twitter and direct email. They can raise impressive money, but they also do it in a way which attracts attention to a campaign, because they raise a lot of money in a short period of time which intimidates opponents and lets supporters flex their financial muscles. And when a Money Bomb raises a big number in a single day the media pays attention, which gets the candidate some free publicity as well.

The success of these Money Bombs is undeniable. They played a big role in the victory of the Scott Brown campaign in Massachusetts this winter and have helped propel Rand Paul to national prominence and a strong lead in the Kentucky senate race. They have created a unique ability for local candidates to pull in money from all over the country and for candidates with pro-liberty reform agendas to raise enough money to compete effectively with political insiders in a way which has never really been possible before. Dissatisfaction with establishment politics clearly plays a role in their success, but the methodology of the Money Bomb also seems to be very effective at identifying and promoting deserving candidates through the internet. They have proven to be a very effective alternative to the cold-call lists and fundraising mailings favored by the major party organizations.

Today a new organization called Liberty Slate is taking this idea to a new level by launching a particularly ambitious Money Bomb directed at promoting a whole slate of candidates in House and Senate races around the country. They are attempting to use the Money Bomb concept to do what groups like the Democrat and Republican Campaign Committees have been doing by more traditional methods for years. But instead of focusing on candidates by party or geography, they are specifically focusing on candidates who have a strong pro-liberty message and who have a realistic chance of being elected. They are essentially attempting to duplicate the fundraising success of the Ron Paul campaign for 32 similarly minded candidates all over the country.

Liberty Slate is the brainchild of Aaron Biterman, a sharp young political activist who has worked as a fundraiser and organizer for various groups including Americans for Limited Government and the National Council on Teacher Quality. He is also on the board of the Republican Liberty Caucus and organized Liberty Slate to raise money for the kinds of candidates the RLC recruits and promotes in an aggressive and creative way, free from the strictures which limit the RLC's endorsement process.

The site for the Money Bomb looks good. It presents the 32 candidates with pictures which link to their websites and info on where they are from, along with the option to contribute any amount of your choice to whichever candidates you select. I ran into a couple of minor glitches when trying it, but ultimately I was able to sort things out and make my contributions. It also offers the option to make a series of monthly contributions, so you can pay just a little per month and it can add up to a lot.

I was very favorably impressed with the selection of candidates. Many of them I was already familiar with, but some were new to me and I did a little investigating. These are dedicated candidates who are running serious campaigns on principles of limited government, free enterprise and individual liberty. A few of them appear to be runing unopposed in the primary and are raising money for the general election, but most of them are raising money for Republican party primaries which will mostly take place this summer. One of them, David Ratowitz, has actually already won his very early GOP primary in suburban Chicago and is now raising money for the general election.

It will be interesting to see how far Liberty Slate gets with this Money Bomb. This is their first outing, so it would be unrealistic to expect too much, but even divided among 32 candidates if they have anything like the success of traditional Money Bombs, some of which have raised millions, it could make a big difference for some of these grassroots campaigns which are chronically underfunded. I suspect that if there is any reasonable success they will continue to raise money and hold more Money Bombs.

Even if they don't raise millions right away, what I think is most significant about this effort is that they have brought online political fundraising to a new level, taking the best ideas from the Tea Party and the Ron Paul campaign and the idea of consolidated donation from the old-style campaign committees to produce a great option for one-stop shopping for those who share their beliefs. It's certainly a big improvement over the cold calls to confused old ladies we used to make when I worked at the NRSC. So if you want to promote liberty in the Republican Party and elect candidates who will move the party and the nation in a more positive direction, take some time to visit Liberty Slate.

After a career as one of the preeminent horror writers of the 1990s and a break which lasted for several years, Robert McCammon has come back with a vengeance, completely reinventing his career, with an impressive series of historical mysteries set in the American colonies in the early 18th century. The stories center on the adventures of legal clerk and freelance investigator Matthew Corbett which began in Speaks the Nightbird, an extraordinary novel which McCammon had not intended to make into a series, but he liked the setting and the characters so much that after making a few chronological revisions he followed it with The Queen of Bedlam and now with a third installment in Mister Slaughter.

Mister Slaughter. Continues the story of Corbett’s work for the Herald Agency based out of New York City, working in partnership with the gruff but formidable Hudson Greathouse. This book picks up directly where The Queen of Bedlam ends, with Corbett and Greathouse taking a commission to retrieve notorious mass murderer Tyranthus Slaughter from a madhouse in Pennsylvania and bring him to New York for transport to England to face justice. Of course, the task of retrieving and delivering the abhorrent Slaughter doesn’t work out as expected, and the story developes into a grueling pursuit through frontier settlements, indian villages and the centers of colonial civilization, uncovering a shadowy criminal network of which Slaughter is just a part.

The story of Mister Slaughter is engaging and moves along quickly, but what really makes the book stand out is McCammon’s attention to developing interesting and complex characters, including his exploration of the nuances of the historical environment which plays a very large role in making the novels in this series as interesting and unique as they are. Corbett gets a lot of development, with his flaws and his virtues placed in striking contrast. He’s heroic and capable yet flawed and troubled at the same time. The book is very much a journey towards a new level of maturity for Corbett as a character. Slaughter also makes an unexpected kind of villain who turns out to be both more and less than you expect him to be by the time the book is done. There’s room in the book for a couple of interesting subplots, some curious secondary characters and a bit of a surprise ending which clearly sets up the next book in the series.

All of this is held together by McCammon’s masterful writing skills, which have evolved and adapted to his material, with undertones of James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving which give the novel an authentic period feel which should make better known and well established historical novelists jealous. Though I heartily recommend Mister Slaughter both as a work of historical fiction and as a mystery novel, I have to warn squeamish readers that there are scenes and situations which are quite graphic and disturbing on the level of the works of Richard Laymon and Clive Barker and if that sort of gore and violence bothers you, read something else. As for me, I’m looking forward to McCammon’s next novel of adventure and mystery in Matthew Corbett’s world.

With three weeks left to go in the Texas Republican primary, libertarian-leaning outsider Debra Medina has gained surprising ground in the polls and is building popular support as an alternative to the too-familiar faces of Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in the race for governor. The latest poll from usually reliable Public Policy Polling surprised even Medina's supporters when it showed that she has risen from single digits to 24%, only five points behind moderate challenger Hutchison, though still far back from incumbent Perry's 39%.

Much of the credit for this sudden increase in popularity has to be attributed to the two Republican debates in which Medina's honest and straightforward answers seemed much more appealing than the posturing and platitudes of the other two candidates. With her background as a close ally of paleoconservative Republican Congressman Ron Paul and head of the Texas Campaign for Liberty, Medina has an even stronger appeal to conservatives and actually polled a point ahead of Hutchison among conservatives likely to vote in the Republican primary.

Medina has come on very strong in the last few weeks and seems to have building momentum. Only a week ago Rasmussen had her at 16% and a few weeks before that most polls had her under 10%. A recent online fundraiser brought in almost $50,000 in only eight hours. Even the mainstream media is taking notice both in Texas and nationwide.

One result of this was that Medina was invited to be on the Glenn Beck radio show this morning for an appearance which turned out to be more like an ambush than an interview. Beck surprised her by asking if she is a 9/11 "truther" suggesting that she subscribes to conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks. Medina was clearly not prepared for the question, despite the fact that she should have expected it based on Ron Paul's frequent association with the conspiracy fringe. She should have come out with a clear and unequivocal "no", but she was flustered and said "I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard. There are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there. So I have not taken a position on that."

Not a strong response and certainly not one which will endear her to mainstream Republican voters. After the interview Beck commented favorably about Governor Perry in comparison and suggested that the answer would send Medina's popularity back to four percent. Some Texas pundits are speculating that Beck has a prior relationship with Perry and that the entire interview was engineered by the Perry campaign to embarrass Medina and stop her surge. Medina issued a clear and unequivocal statement that she was not in any way a "truther" on her website, but that may be closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.

If this small stumble doesn't slow her down and Medina can continue to build support, perhaps by using some of her recently acquired campaign funds to challenge Perry and Hutchison in their massive TV and radio advertising campaigns. She also has a very enthusiastic core following similar to the hardcore Ron Paul partisans from 2008. She's also pulling the majority of the Tea Party voters in the state and they will play a big role. If turnout is low, her strongest partisans will show up in force with a devotion which voters for the other candidates don't have. That kind of edge can make a huge difference.

All she needs is a few more points and she could become the beneficiary of Texas' run-off system. If she beats Hutchison and Perry stays under 50% – as seems inevitable – she will end up in a run-off election with Perry. Polling suggests that she is drawing votes mostly from Perry and also that many of the Hutchison votes are anti-Perry votes. It's possible that if she could make it to a run-off she would gain enough Hutchinson votes to beat Perry. It would take winning over about 70% of Hutchison's support, but it's possible and it would certainly be one of the great upsets in Texas political history.

For those not familiar with Texas politics, the Republican gubernatorial primary has extra significance, because despite their earnest efforts, the chances of either of the Democrat challengers (Bill White and Farouk Shalmi) coming within waving distance of any Republican nominee in the general election is slim to none. It's still looking like Rick Perry's race to lose, but he's held the office longer than any governor in the history of the state and people are tired of him. Medina is a fresh face and a real alternative, qualities which Hutchison can't match.

Over the weekend I’ve been thinking about Tea Party Nation’s convention in Nashville and some of the criticism which has been leveled at it. A lot of that criticism focuses on the fact that the organizers are charging a lot, paying Sarah Palin a lot, and making a profit on the event. This made me wonder when people on the right who supposedly believe in free enterprise and individual liberty decided that making money was a bad thing.

It’s not just the convention. Throughout the discontented masses of newly energized activists there’s a suspicion of any group which has links to corporate interests or is supported by large donations from foundations or companies. FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party Express have all been the targets of criticism because they are seen as sellouts or shills for special interests. Yet what’s so wrong about bringing money or influence to a cause? If a group or a company or a rich individual happens to share your interests, why is it wrong to benefit from his largess? If a wealthy foundation or even a health insurance company will give you the platform to reach a wider audience with your message, why is that bad? They may be using you, but you’re also using them, and if your interests coincide even temporarily then you both benefit and if you’re sincere your efforts will do more good than they would if you were just protesting on a street corner without the money to get on TV or gather larger crowds.

It seems to me that the new activism of the Tea Party has to some degree become infected with the anti-capitalism of the protest culture of the left, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a positive influence. If we accept that the enemy of the movement is the out-of-control state and its corporate allies, that does not mean that every politician and every business is an enemy. The policies which the Tea Parties object to are as harmful to many businesses as they are to individuals and there are plenty of politicians who remember that votes got them elected, not just money. Not all businesses are part of the cabal which wields power and there are always ambitious politicians looking for a new power base. Populism and opposition to the status quo can be a powerful political force which can make your career.

Causes need money, and sooner or later every movement is going to need allies with deep pocketbooks. The trick is picking allies whose interests are close to your own, and it shouldn’t be difficult, because they will come knocking at your door, realizing that your group is one they can work with.

In the same way, attracting some opportunistic politicians who want to promote their careers while promoting your issues is not a bad thing, so long as you remain true to your beliefs and hold the politicians accountable. The media has declared that Sarah Palin has hijacked the Tea Party movement, but it’s just as true that the Tea Party movement has hijacked her and that she’s tailoring her message to appeal to their interests.

In these relationships both sides benefit.

So today, in the aftermath of the Tea Party Nation Convention, I received an email from the Tea Party Patriots, who are one of the more legitimate, grassrootsy Tea Party groups. They’re not well funded and are mainly just a bunch of activists all over the country who are organizing small protests in combination with other groups. They’re all chuffed because the Tea Party Nation folks had their convention first and got so much media attention and they’re afraid it will cut into their popularity and take away from their their convention which is coming up on April 15th.

In their email they write about Tea Party groups selling out to politically connected and well-financed interests:

The Tea Party Movement started because of these tactics and we will not be used like this. We are smarter than that and we will call out any one and any organization who tries to undermine the grassroots movement known as the Tea Party Movement.

The truth is that if they want the press coverage they can get it most easily by forming alliances with groups that have money and can draw prominent speakers and get media attention. That doesn’t necessarily mean selling out. Those groups need the grassroots folks on the ground too much to exploit them in any way which would alienate them. And ultimately you are responsible for your own integrity. If you don’t like what your allies are doing, call them on it and sever ties. Just make sure that your own behavior and activities are above reproach.

In a related phenomenon, Ron Paul supporters make a big deal of how they had the Tea Party idea first. But you can’t really own an idea or own a movement, even if you got there first. And you can’t take someone’s movement away or hijack it because you decide to join it and brought a lot of friends or a lot of money with you. If the movement is authentic and if it is driven by real issues then it is going to continue and gain strength.

Obviously the Tea Party movement is diverse and it’s made up of lots of groups with different strategies and interests and resources. But for it to work and grow people need to be willing to form alliances, and that means they can’t afford to let the anti-corporate, anti-establishment attitude run away with them. It’s self-indulgent and self-defeating. Righteousness and ideological purity may make you feel great as you sit in the local coffee house plotting revolution with your little cell of like-minded individuals, but it gets in the way of actually accomplishing anything. It’s an egotistical delusion. To succeed you need to put ego aside and be prepared to not be the center of attention and devote your efforts to making the cause itself what matters, not yourself or your particular group.

That’s called maturity and the Tea Party movement is very young. If it’s going to mature it’s going to change and people are going to have to make some compromises along the way. That includes putting aside ego and giving up some control and accepting the help of older groups and foundations and even allying with icky things like politicians and corporations, because that’s how you build influence. Just stick to your principles and lead by example and make the right deals with the right people. You might end up changing the world.

In reading coverage of the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville I have to wonder if this might be the final nail in the coffin of the Tea Party movement. There's still a lot of legitimate anger and grassroots protest out there, but this event is such a charade and so fundamentally antithetical to the spirit of the Tea Party protests that it's going to leave a lot of people discouraged and disenchanted and feeling betrayed.

The problems with the National Tea Party Convention are many, but three stand out:

It represents only one tea party group and most of the others, including organizers of the most successful tea party protests, smelled a rat and chose not to participate. The organizers seem like opportunists trying to cash in on the Tea Party phenomenon.

It's being run purely for profit, by a corporation created for that purpose and pulling out all the stops to make money, from a huge price to attend to massive merchandising of high priced T-shirts and trinkets. It's more like a Star Trek convention than a political event, except that attendance is much lower and fewer people are in costume.

It seems to have been taken over by one particular hardcore, right wing ideology, with Sarah Palin headlining and with many of the more mainstream conservative and libertarian speakers who were scheduled to attend canceling because they were uncomfortable with the environment.

The net result of this is a very limited scope to the convention and a very specialized audience. With a cost of $549 for full admission and the additional costs of travel and lodging, the young students and hard-working people who made up the crowds at authentic protests this past year mostly can't afford to attend.

Mainstream Republicans turned against the event and attempted to distance themselves, with Representatives Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) bowing out as guests on short notice because of concern over the corporate, for-profit status of the event and the backlash against it among the grassroots voters with whom they have become very popular for their outspoken criticism of the Obama administration.

Other legitimate grassroots groups involved in the Tea Parties are either ignoring the convention entirely like the Libertarian Party, American Liberty Alliance and Republican Liberty Caucus, or they are actively opposing the convention and even planning protests as the National Precinct Alliance declared it would do when it withdrew from participation. Even the Tea Party Express, which has itself been accused of selling out to corporate interests, dropped out of the convention a couple of weeks ago.

With both mainstream Republicans turning against the event and other legitimate elements of the Tea Party movement generally ignoring it, the environment at the convention seems to have turned rather strange. The huge number of press representatives who were invited are being excluded from many of the events and the convention has already attracted national negative attention when opening speaker Joseph Farah launched a birther screed about President Obama's Birth certificate, garnering major negative response from left and right alike.

As a result of all of this, attendance is embarrassingly low, with an official estimate of only 600 paid attendees, which is far less than the left's similar Netroots Nation event which intentionally capped attendance at about three times that size. I've run a lot of conventions, and with that few attendees and paying for Opryland and $100,000 for Sarah Palin's speech, even at $549 a head it seems very unlikely that the organizers will see more than a modest profit, and the new Ensuring Liberty PAC which they are launching out of the convention isn't going to have a lot of cash to throw around as a result.

Now I have to admit that everyone has a right to make a buck, and if turning the Tea Party movement into a circus and inviting the scorn of the left media and genuine grassroots activists is worth enduring to make some money, then Mark Skoda and Justin Phillips of Tea Party Nation have every right to do it. And we can’t blame Sarah Palin for banking another six figures in her bank account. But I think that there is reason to be concerned about what this event will do to the grassroots movement which it represents so poorly.

Obviously an event like this isn't going to put an end to the genuine discontent among working Americans which motivated all of the protests over the past year.  Yet it really does highlight the biggest problem that these loosely associated Tea Party groups have, which is their lack of nationwide organization.  They are inherently leery of some of the organizations which could provide them with guidance and structure like  FreedomWorks and don't want to sell out to the corporate interests they feel those groups represent.  But it's clear from this convention that even some from within their own ranks are pretty eager to sell out and turn a profit from the movement without really moving them any closer to unity.

A small, overpriced and not-very-representative convention with most of the Tea Party groups absent isn't going to provide any kind of real or lasting  leadership or influence, and the backlash against it is probably going to make future organizing and coordination more difficult as groups look on each other with even more suspicion.  While this event could have been an opportunity to unify protesters, it is likely to have the exact opposite effect, and the Tea Party movement will remain a loose alliance with its members even more disaffected and disillusioned than they were before.  Some will probably even become discouraged and leave the movement before the 2010 elections give them a chance to have a real influence.

Ironically, if this convention does have a unifying effect, it's more likely to come out of the hostile coverage from the left than from anything done at the convention.  As sanctimonious leftists like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann mock the event and the "Teabaggers" in general, such does more to bring them together despite their differences than any misstep like this convention does to drive them apart.  Even those who aren't supporting the convention are going to be offended by the mocking and derision of the left, and that  will help them find common ground in common enemies and maybe the next attempt at working together will go better as a result.

So don't write the Tea Party off just because of this sad event in Tennessee.  The final chapter in the story of grassroots America rising up and demanding better government has yet to be written and the real test will come at the polls this November.

The only thing falling faster than the dollar and the hopes of unemployed Americans this winter is the snow in Washington DC. The capital is now in the grips of its third blizzard in two weeks, this one expected to rival the famed Knickerbocker snowstorm of 1922 which shut the entire city down for a week. With 30 inches predicted and if the cold temperatures hold up we might get lucky and see federal offices still closed as the coming work-week starts.

Based on President Obama's proposed budget, every day we manage to keep the federal government completely shut down we save $10 billion, so if we can somehow keep the city closed for about 4 months of the coming year we could balance the federal budget, assuming there's any tax revenue left after back-door taxes and excessive regulation finish destroying the small businesses which make up 70% of our economy.

There's a certain ironic balance to the image of Washington buried under a blizzard of snow considering how they have buried the country under a blizzard of worthless paper in the form of bad debt and devalued money issued by the federal reserve. Perhaps it's cosmic vengeance for taking a nation which was an economic powerhouse only a few years ago and putting it so far in debt that economists are now predicting that our debt exceeds our ability to ever repay it and that the amount we will need to borrow to finance that debt actually exceeds the lending capacity of the financial resources of the entire world. All assuming anyone will lend us money when our national credit rating is downgraded.

Sadly we can't depend on winter to last forever and despite its extraordinary level of corruption and inefficiency, the DC government does have enough snowplows to eventually clear the streets, so business as usual will begin again in DC before long and our rights and our fortunes will once again be at the mercy of irresponsible legislators and out of control bureaucrats.

In addressing the risk that our national credit worthiness will be downgraded, Moody's Investment Services emphasized that the problem is not discretionary spending but entitlements, pointing out that "the combination of the medical programmes and social security is the most important threat to the triple-A rating over the long term."

When the snow ends and the government goes back to work, President Obama is going to have to face a reality which is going to be very unpleasant for the leader of a political movement based on handing out entitlements to every constituency. He's going to have to admit that not only can he not pass or justify a massive new spending program like national healthcare, but he is going to have to look seriously at cutting the benefits of already existing programs like Social Security and Medicare. Cutting those costs which make up over two thirds of the budget are the only possible way to get the debt situation under control and that debt now poses so great a threat to the economy that it cannot be ignored.

At this point, obligations to these programs has reached a level where even if the President were to cut 100% of discretionary spending the amount due for Medicare and Social Security alone would consume the entire projected government revenue in 2011. That means that it is effectively impossible to balance the budget without cutting these programs which now make up over 70% of the total budget. The experts at Moody's can see this, but it's not a reality that Obama or the Democrats in Congress are likely to embrace.

Republicans are alredy facing up to this reality. Earlier this week Representative Jeb Hensaerling (R-TX) was on MSNBC and got a lot of attention when he forward a proposal to cut Social Security benefits for younger retirees and ease into a privatized system. Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag is on record as advocating cuts in social security benefits prior to his appointment, and has pointed out that the projected deficits are unsustainable.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has now proposed a bill sponsored by five other House Republicans which would solve this problem for President Obama. It cuts the corporate tax rate to spur economic growth, moves many medicare and medicaid services into the hands of private insurance plans, raises the retirement age gradually to 70 and reduces the growth of social security benefits while allowing some social security investment to be privatized. It's a smart and forward looking plan which would address the critical budgetary crisis in an effective way.

The question is whether President Obama will listen to Congressional Republicans like Ryan nad Hensaerling or will he and Congressional Democrats just pretend their proposals do not exist as they did with Republican ideas for healthcare reform. If Obama seriously believes in bipartisanship and is listening to the warnings coming from the international financial community and his own OMB director, he should take a hard look at Ryan's bill. It's pretty close to a life preserver for a drowning man. It's clear that the Democratic leadership in Congress wants to carry on business as usual, live in denial and pretend they can get away without making hard decisions. That leaves the burden of responsibility with President Obama. If he works with Republicans and it fails he can always blame them and if it succeeds he can get most of the credit.

Failing an outbreak of genuine bipartisanship and an alliance between Congressional Republicans and the President, we're lucky that the gurus of global warming are so laughably wrong. When this year's extraordinary snowfall turns into the fimbulwinter and DC is under a glacier, that might be the only hope we have left of stopping the mad spending.

President Obama is giving his first State of the Union address on Wednesday at 9pm EST. We’re going to be covering it live with special guest bloggers and commenters as well as open participation for our readers. Watch this space for the live chat starting when the president takes the podium.