Nothing Gives Your Tea Party That Anti-Establishment Flair Like A Coal Industry Spokesman and GOP PR Firm

Nothing says "We're not a part of the establishment!" quite like having the the president of the Ohio Coal Association as a top keynote speaker at your holiday "tea party."

Mike Carey (president of the coal trade group), the host of "The Jihadi Killer Hour" radio program, Bill "Obama wants to turn everyone into a Nazi snitch" Hennessy, radio host Dana Loesch, Lemay baker/Ed Martin campaign leader Dave McArthur and a few other uberconservatives are all on the agenda.

Amusingly, the flier for Saturday's "Tea Party" in Kiener Plaza states that "10,000 Tea Partiers" met at that same spot in April.  A more reasonable crowd estimate is actually about 20% of that total, seeing how the maximum capacity for the venue is 3,000 people.

The same flier also indicates that the event is being at least partly organized by former Senate candidate Gina Loudon, now of the Legacy Group.

  Clients and partners of the company include:

• GOP consultant John Hancock
• former Senator John Loudon
• the secretive anti-EFCA SOS Ballot organization
• Rep. Sue Allen (R-Town and Country)

I don't begrudge Loudon or the firm their success in business -- there's nothing wrong with being a consultant and working for political organizations and campaigns, even if I think they're nuts. And there's nothing wrong with having professional help in putting together an event like this. But it's darn hard for the St. Louis Tea Party to pretend they're on the outside looking in with industry shills and a Republican PR firm helping them out.

h/t St Louis Pushes Back

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The flier: