The simmering movement is the whitest phenomenon on the national scene, evident not just in its Caucasian numbers but in the bedrock beliefs stirring its anti-government contempt.

Editor's Note: Rich Benjamin's commentary on the underlying "white grievance" currents in the Tea Party movement were buttressed Thursday by the statements of Republican Tom Tancredo, the opening speaker at the Tea Party convention. Tancredo told attendees that President Barack Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country," an allusion to how Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters before the civil rights era.

The Tea Party movement, holding its first convention this weekend, is angling to be the most revolutionary force in American politics in name and in deed, since at least the 1960s counterculture. Only this time, the political insurgents command a party of Flour Power, not flower power.

The simmering movement is the whitest phenomenon on the national scene, evident not just in the millions of Caucasians committed to its cause, but in the bedrock beliefs stirring its anti-government contempt.

They’re not “independents,” they’re not fake, they’re not all nuts. And, as Wingnuts

author John Avlon explains, they’re not going away.

One year ago, the first Tea Party protest hadn't even been held yet and the phrase remained safely ensconced in American history textbooks. This weekend, the first national Tea Party Convention will be held in Nashville, and the fractious movement has secured a place in the history of the Obama administration. But for all the attention it has earned, misconceptions abound. Here are the top five.

1. Tea Partiers = Independents

Independents are the largest and fastest-growing voter segment—a new CNN poll puts independents at 42 percent of the American electorate. Given the Tea Partiers' anger at overspending under Bush as well as Obama, it's been tempting to equate them with independent voters—but there are fundamental differences. Polls of independents' policy positions consistently place them in between Republicans and Democrats—closer to the GOP on economic issues and closer to the Democrats on social issues. But the Tea Partiers tend to be to the right of the Republican Party on both fiscal and social issues. Their opposition to the Obama administration is overheated and absolute. Independents are angry at the polarization of the two parties; Tea Partiers want more polarization between the two parties. Independents tend to be centrists; Tea Partiers attack centrist Republicans as Republicans in Name Only, or RINOs. Tea Partiers are conservative populists.

There is real grassroots anger going on, based in deep policy debates over the proper role of government as well as shallow partisan politics.

President Barack Obama cited the death of St. Louis activist Melanie Shouse in promising not to give up on fighting for health care reform.

In a speech Thursday the president spoke of Shouse’s death and her obituary that day in the Post-Dispatch.

"How can I say to her .... "We’re giving up?" Obama said.

The newspaper reported that Shouse, 41, had died Saturday after a four and half year battle with stage four breast cancer.

She had used her savings to open a business and said she couldn’t afford expensive health insurance.

She had delayed going to a doctor after she began to feel sick. She explained that she could only afford so-called "catastrophic" insurance — one that required her to pay $5,000 in deductibles before the insurance kicked in.

Shouse spent the last years of her life advocating that consumers "take on the Big Insurance Monopoly and liberate American families from the slavery of skyrocketing insurance premiums and cancelled coverage, which leave millions of us in a state of perpetual fear and insecurity."

American politics is a hoot! Where else can raw ignorance rise to such high places -- and then flaunt itself shamelessly for all to see?

For example, who needs Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien for comic relief, when we've got Andre Bauer? He's the Lieutenant governor of South Carolina (a state, by the way, that really is a comer on the political comedy circuit -- especially after Gov. Mark Sanford's madcap schtick last year involving his disappearance, the Appalachian Trail and an Argentine mistress.

But Sanford is leaving office, and Bauer, who is now a Republican contender for governor, is the state's new star joker. He had 'em rolling in the aisles recently when he did a wild, slapstick routine on food stamps at a town hall meeting. Andre proclaimed that much of his political thinking was shaped by his grandmother and that he had learned a valuable lesson from her.

"She told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why?" he asked, pausing for comedic effect. "Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce."

I tell you, Andre Bauer is an absolute scream!

But here's the real punch line: The need for food stamps has been soaring as more and more Americans are falling out of the middle class into poverty. From 2000 to 2008, 5 million more were added to the poverty rolls, and that was before the economic collapse of the last two years. In fact, check this out Andre, and laugh if you feel like it: About 6 million Americans today are living entirely on food stamps -- they've lost their jobs and have no other income. That's one out of every 50 of us, and their numbers are growing rapidly. Now, isn't that a hoot?

Our democracy is for sale. Every day. It is the reason people are just fed up with the dysfunctional political system. People want real change that will give them back a smidgen of security. The Republican Party has shown itself to be incapable of managing our economy. But, there is a fight underway for the soul of the Democratic Party: between Wall Street Democrats and the people.

I want to start this story by recounting a very recent conversation with a seasoned political operative in New York, a good, decent person who plays the political game quite well. This person said, "your opponent is totally beatable and can win this race if you raise the money and I know how you could get money from Wall Street by making an alliance with X person". I stopped this person immediately and said, "I won't take that money". There was silence on the phone and this person said, "Then, you can't win". I replied, "I do not want to win if the price is to be corrupted by that money".

We do not have to wait to get full public financing for campaigns (which I support) or to undo the Supreme Court decision with legislation or constitutional amendments (though I was glad to sign on to this effortimmediately after the SCOTUS' decision). We, Democrats, can say now--we won't accept corporate PAC money, we won't accept the corrupting money that hurts the American people.