*sigh*
i see the media talking heads have you believing that the tea-baggers are exclusively, or the majority, are republicans
nifty little tactic they have- through the simple use of labels that don't mean anything- to turn the people against each other huh?
Nah, it's not the media that's making this up. The republican party is most definitely taking political advantage of the teabag people. While there seem to be some folks who are genuinely 'libertarians' and hate government whether it be dem or republican, most of them are just your run-of-mill hardcore conservatives who conveniently decided to hate big government the minute government was no longer run by the republicans.
I might be wrong, but the only way to find out would be to go to one of these rallies, get on a soapbox and speak out in favor of ending the drug war, legalizing prostitution and gambling, withdrawing our troops from foreign soil etc. You know exactly what kind of reaction that would elicit among these crowds and I think that's a pretty good indication that the majority of these people or just your average kool-aid conservatives who've jumped on the libertarian bandwagon because it's the hip thing at the moment.
I'm not saying that there aren't people who go to these things who are genuinely libertarian and organized for ron paul last year, but I think it's pretty obvious that most of them are just disgruntled republicans, who just hate obama and don't really care about small government, as long as the government is run by 'conservatives' who spend our tax-money on war and tax cuts for the wealthy rather than giving people access to better eduction and healthcare.