I have personally met Democrats that are heavily involved in the Tea Part. The Tea Party cuts across party lines, racial lines, gender lines. It’s a true grassroots movement. The liberals have not seen anything like it and it scares them to death. There is still hope for this country - come to think of it, that’s probably what scares them.
I remember seeing interviews with some women at a TEA Party rally early on; they were Hillary Clinton supporters. I don’t know what they thought she would have done differently (in terms of taxes), but I think they were just angry that some Kenyan Muslim had stolen the election from her. I think a number of Hillary’s “hard-working white people” lost their enthusiasm for Dems at that point; the 2009 and 2010 elections seem to indicate that.