New Tea Party PAC: Can it raise $10 million for midterm revolt?

With a vow to “take away the mystery of campaigns,” organizers of the first-ever Tea Party Convention followed up Friday with the announcement of a new political action committee that would work to elect "tea party"-style candidates in as many as 20 national races this fall.

It won’t be the first such endeavor since the millions-strong "tea party" movement first flooded onto the streets after CNBC reporter Rick Santelli’s much-publicized “rant” against a proposed government mortgage bailout a year ago.

For example, the Tea Party Express PAC spent $285,000 on Scott Brown’s race in Massachusetts. His victory bolstered the fortunes of the tea party movement by breaking the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, putting much of the Democratic agenda, including healthcare reform, in jeopardy. Moreover, there are literally dozens of smaller tea party PACs from Tennessee to California working to raise money for local tea party candidates.

Such PACs are expected to play a role in dozens of upcoming congressional elections in Florida, Kentucky, Arizona, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and several other states.

Tea party looking for corporate donations

The US Supreme Court’s recent decision to scale back part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms could also come to play a role. Tea party organizers gathered in Nashville, Tenn., say corporations are welcome to donate.

The establishment of various tea-party-related campaign funds is part of a rush by genuine organizers, K Street lobbyists, established party operatives, and even hucksters to cash in on the tea party moniker – a criticism that has been leveled from both outside and inside the movement against Tea Party Nation, the for-profit group that’s bringing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to Nashville for a speech Saturday night.

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