Glenn Reynolds directs our attention [1] to a report [2] from Marathon Pundit. It's one more example of just how clueless the leaders of the tea parties are (bolding added):

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is one of the eight "cap-and-tr8ters" who crossed the line and voted for [cap-and-trade]...

Today at Noon a Tea Party protest took place at Kirk's district office... the peak attendance was thirty...

[After waving signs, a] polite staffer named Eric met with us for twenty minutes--we all expressed feelings, negative ones, about Kirk's vote...

While we were in Kirk's office--the phone rang...and rang...and rang. A few calls were about a Kirk-sponsored job fair taking place today in Palatine--that's where the Congressman is spending today

1. Thirty people - especially if they're just waving loopy signs - isn't going to sway any politician's mind.

2. It's great that they expressed their "feelings". It would be better if they had tried to engage the staffer in debate and then had written up an accurate recounting of the converation in an attempt to show how they were right and the staffer was wrong. They wouldn't even have to get that on video, although that would help.

3. Rather than going to where the Congressman was - probably a location where it would be easy to ask him a question - they went to where he wasn't. Now, certainly, maybe that's all that fit into their schedule. However, if they've got enough organizing abilities to get some people to wave loopy signs, then they've got the organizing skills to do something far more effective. Clearly, it's other skills they're lacking.

[1] pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/81045
[2] marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2009/06/cap-and-trade-tea-party-at-rep-mark.html