Well, it looks like the accusations of Tea Partiers being terrorists may be falling a little flat, or maybe the usual media tools and pols have gotten some blow-back for jumping on that particular bandwagon. Me, I’m beyond outrage. Anyone mouthing that poisonous little meme –– is someone that I will cheerfully boycott, vote against, disregard and shun – and that even includes John McCain. I took his description of Tea Partiers as hobbits as meaning to be demeaning. Once, I had expected better of him. Now – just another bitter establishment RINO, one of a number of old-line Republicans, seeing the writing on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin and not liking it a single bit. You have been tried and found wanting, and your kingdom will be divided between the strict constitutionalists and the fiscal conservatives. Rage, rage against the dying of the light of things in Washington as they have been for lo these many years.

Frankly, to me – for a professional politician of either party to have been happily ensconced within the Beltway for more than a term or two or three is now a positive dis-recommendation, and I shouldn’t be the least surprised to find out that my attitude is shared, and will be demonstrated in November, 2012. It is to laugh, though – to see the established political elite twist and squirm over the last two years since the first Tea Party rallies, and the conventional wisdom morph. Let’s see – first, just bitter clingers having a tantrum, and if there were more than a dozen or a couple of hundred, the protests would peter out for lack of continuing enthusiasm. I think this attitude among established pols and the mainstream media began to change after the humongously large gathering in Washington, late in 2009. I could almost hear the grinding of the gears inside the political and media Leviathans: Oh krep-we’d better start paying attention to those freaks with the Gadsden flags, there’s a whole lotta them out there! And then when Senator Bennett of Utah was given the bum’s rush by the Utah GOP caucus – packed full of Tea Partier sympathizers, who were only following up on the same earnest intention of the Tea Partiers I knew in Texas – to take over the local GOP caucus from the inside . . . well, it was to laugh.

Really, at first the local establishment Repubs were all enthusiastic about the Tea Party; some of them were naturally in sympathy anyway, but I am sure the higher-ups were seeing it as a new source of money, and volunteer enthusiasm, all ready to be bridled, saddled and ridden. It was sweet and kinda pathetic – they heard what they wanted to hear, and disregarded the rest. I distinctly remember a strategy meeting about this, sometime in the summer of ’09 or so; third party was out, no future in that. Taking over the Dems from inside – we did kick around the idea, but concluded that – given our various backgrounds and inclinations, probably the GOP was a better fit. And such was the genius of the self-organizing Tea Party, all of the leaders and local enthusiasts were talking to each other, emailing and sharing information on a grand scale; what one local party came up with swiftly spread by internet osmosis to others. It was a demonstration of the principle of the wisdom of crowds, or if you like – a number of minds tackling the same problem from many different angles and coming up spontaneously with pretty much the same answer.

And now the old-line, established Republican politicians and strategists – among others – are belatedly discovering that many of the Tea Party candidates meant exactly what they said, having said what they meant. Good luck with trying to marginalize them – that feline has already exited the fabric containment field.

2012 is shaping up to be a really fun election year, I must say. (Note to self – buy some more popcorn, before the price of it goes up. And note to everyone – last week was invited to be one of the contributors to the Chicago Boyz blog. I had been commenting there since forever, in blog-years time, and so Lex and Johnathan very kindly invited me. I’ll try and cross-post as much as possible.)