When the seasoned and highly respected Senator John McCain selected the then unknown Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate in his failed bid for the presidency, it looked like a joke.

Pretty, but relatively inarticulate, and apparently unaware of national or international politics and diplomacy, it was assumed by most political analysts she would simply fade away after McCain lost.

On the contrary, she is very visible, with a bestselling book Going Rogue on her version of the campaign and a paid job as political analyst for Fox News – a spot once held by arch-conservative Newt Gingrich. And now she has become cover girl for a new political movement called the Tea Party.

Founded a year ago, the Tea Party held its first national convention February 4th in Nashville, Tennessee. With a bow to early Americans who revolted against the British, some came in Revolutionary costume. They have no official platform and no organization.

They are simply opposed to big government, federal bailouts, and hostile to media, immigration, and multiculturalism. They think the government has undermined the Constitution, and they want to do away with the Federal Reserve, Federal Income Tax, Social Security, and Medicare. They want smaller government, less government spending, and are against national healthcare.

For anyone angry about losing a house or a job, this was a call to revolution. At the Nashville convention, delegates were told how to use Facebook and Twitter and spread the word to raise money to challenge both Democrats and moderate Republicans in local elections and primaries.

They invited the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican parties, but neither showed up. They took credit for the election of Republican Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, but he didn’t show up either.

Sarah Palin was not a founder of the Tea Party but she fit in nicely. It is an ultra-conservative political movement made up of right wing conservative Republicans and independents who are angry with the government.

Their conspiracy theories include one that the president is deliberately undermining the Constitution for the benefit of a shadowy elite. In her speech, for which she was paid $100,000, Mrs. Palin marked off the administration’s foreign policy which is designed to reinstate America’s credibility in the world, as “apologizing for America.” She took potshots at the president, accusing him of a “lackadaisical” attitude to the war on terrorism. “To win the war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law.”

The Tea Party believers promise to “take back America” from its dangerous drift to the left and restore states’ rights and individual rights – themes the “hockey mom” from Alaska strongly endorses.

She called the Tea Party “the future of politics in America.” Fortunately, at this point, it is a disorganized, shapeless minority. But they have the indestructible Sarah Palin on their side.