The vast majority of those in the tea parties are - not to put too fine a point on it - suckers.

Previously they wanted to have a beer with George W Bush, a quisling who allowed loose borders, who wanted to help lower U.S. wages to world levels, and who let foreign citizens take jobs away from American hurricane victims.

Nowadays they're following leaders (Dick Armey of FreedomWorks, Grover Norquist, the Koch family, the Wall Street Journal, Club for Growth, libertarians, etc. etc.) and an ideology ("Libertarian Lite") that hurts them (extreme fiscal conservatism) and that ignores their real concerns (which are social in nature).

The real leaders of the tea parties are all about the money: the only way they'd care about social topics like (just to pick one topic out of a hat) affirmative action is if it would cost them or their benefactors money. The real leaders of the teaparties all support at least massive immigration if not illegal immigration because that's the side where the money is. What the real leaders of the Tea Parties support negatively impacts the teaparty base, but the base isn't able to see through it.

So, this previously missed story from October 29, 2010 is not at all surprising (link):

A website run out of Arizona, ostensibly to support the so-called tea party movement, is under scrutiny after a local news organization dug into their finances and ownership, only to find what some may characterize as a remarkable scam.

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosure forms, JoinTheTeaParty.us took in approximately $469,000 in donations this year and spent roughly half its budget on marketing, with the rest going to distinctly non-political avenues.

In fact, according to CBS 5 in Phoenix, there's no evidence the group spent so much as a dime to promote tea party candidates or related events.