There's no centralized tea party organization, and anecdotes suggest that many tea party participants hold socially conservative views. But those views have been little in evidence at movement gatherings or in public statements, and are sometimes deliberately excluded from the political agenda. The groups coordinating them eschew social issues, and a new Contract From America, has become an article of concern on the social right.

The contract, sponsored by the grass-roots Tea Party Patriots as well as Washington groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax Reform, asks supporters to choose the 10 most important issues from a menu of 21 choices that makes no mention of socially conservative priorities such as gay marriage and abortion.

SNIP

There's little data on the disparate tea party movement. One small CNN survey of self-identified tea party activists found that 68 percent identify themselves as Protestants or other non-Catholic Christians, as opposed to just 50 percent in the general population. Only 9 percent of the activists say they're irreligious, as opposed to 14 percent in the broader sample.

But an in-depth study of 49 tea party leaders by the free-market oriented Sam Adams Alliance suggested that the leadership consciously avoids social issues and plans to continue doing so.

"None of them chose social issues as the sole direction for the movement," said the group's marketing director, Anne Sorock, who oversaw the study.

She said that while many of the leaders held conservative views on social issues, "they were completely adamant that [the issues] were not a part of their agenda for the long term."

"Across the board everyone had the same answer: It's so important that they achieve their goals that social issues cannot distract them, because they need to cast the widest net of consensus with the widest group possible," she said.

Tim and his pals are up to their self-serving necks in fraud over Lehman Brothers.

Meanwhile, Atrios and the rest of the 'inside the blog-way' luminaries refuse to acknowledge the fact that this WH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall St, masquerading as Main st.

Yves Smith is burning down the temple. Thank goodness we've got her to pull back the curtain.

Looks bad for Tim. If there's a hint of truth in all this, he'll be the under the bus within weeks.

Maybe it's just that compared to Jake and Vienna, Jason and Molly are a relief to watch. I hope Jakes gets eliminated in week one during DWTS. I'd rather watch Tom DeLay.

You are number one!

so VERY concerned.   its really touching.   why wont the democrats listen they only have their best interests at heart.

BWA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA hahahahahaha aahhhhh

I wish I hadnt.