This has been the spin out of the Ron Paul movement for a while. I’ve heard it several times.
Honestly, the more I hear out of the Ron Paul camp, the more I think it qualifies as the political version of a CULT. Everything somehow relates back to Ron Paul.
That’s probably the cause of the tension with the Tea Party movement. It’s pretty well documented how it started (with a reporter’s outcry on a trading room floor) and it had nothing to do with Ron Paul. The Paul supporters are causing the tension (and distrust) by claiming they started it instead. It’s hard to trust someone when you know they are flat out lying about something (like starting the Tea Party movement.)
All anyone needs to know about Ron Paul that it was his camp that gave the "code pinkers" the Convention tickets that they used to protest both McCain and Palin when they delivered their speeches.
Paul has WAY too much Ross Perot in him. After a while, they really start to believe some of their own BS.