Teabaggers.  Disgruntled with everything Washington, everything politics.  No one is safe from their ire, and they will equally aim at either major party.  They’re mostly independent voters, and their choices next fall will be based upon the candidate who best represents their views, regardless of party.

The movement has a big weekend conference coming up in Nashville, Tennessee, with Sarah Palin as the paid keynote speaker.  No doubt she’s hoping to remain their darling, and find out where they are going so she can lead them there.   If that sounds somewhat cynical, it’s intended to.

These folks are angry.  Hell, I’m angry, too.  We have a president still warming up to his job, seemingly unable to govern and lead.  We have a Democratically controlled Congress that’s afraid of its own shadow and reticent to use their numbers advantage to do something, anything.  And, we have Republicans who’s wordsmanship consists of “no” and nothing else.  Our elected officials think their job is to keep their job rather than do it, and so Washington emits sound bites and nothing more.

Teabaggers, though, have little more.  “Cut taxes” is a wonderful notion, and makes a great sound bite, but when it comes to specifics, the teabaggers are as clueless as our elected officials.  “Obama is a socialist,” also a wonderful sound bite, but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny when it comes to specifics.

What exactly gets cut?  What “socialist” program gets eliminated?  Social Security, the largest socialist program in the world, represents 20% of the federal budget.  As someone less than five years from his first Social Security check, I damn well don’t want its benefits reduced or jeopardized, let alone eliminated, and I doubt any teabagger is going to refuse to cash their checks when they come.

Medicare, the world’s second largest socialist program, chimes in at 19%.  National defense and Homeland Security represents 23% combined.  The total of these mandatory spending categories in the federal budget represents 62%, and when you add in to that the amount of interest paid on the public debt (9.5%), we’re well over 70%. And for those of you who might be curious, as of this date this morning, the cost of the war in Iraq stands at $705,172,900,000.

So, who’s for cutting Social Security?  Medicare?  National Defense?  Show of hands, people?  Where do the cuts get made?  Just exactly how are taxes going to be cut, and what will we have to learn to live without?

Part of the anger felt by all of us, teabaggers or not, is the sense of helplessness with the overwhelming complexity of the government’s economy and budget.  How do we begin to understand money in increments of billions, or trillions, when we feel rich and lucky just to have an extra ten dollar bill in our wallet?

Any political candidate who tells us he or she has the answers to these unfathomable-to-the-layman questions is a liar.  Any political pundit or cable news commentator or radio entertainer who claims to have the answers is equally a liar.  It takes serious people with serious minds and serious dedication to grapple with these issues, and anyone who paints a swaztika on a placard with the President’s face isn’t one of them.

And yet, the teabagger enrollment continues to grow, and this weekend will have a good turnout, garner great publicity and news coverage, and give a platform to the intellectual lightweight Palin as keynote speaker. Incumbents of any party should be afraid about their chances next fall, for these people are serious about at least one thing – - their anger.  Incumbents are in their cross-hairs, and they’ll be coming for you.

In Massachusetts, Scott Brown won, in part, because of his positions on national security and the fight against terrorists.  He’s a Republican, but a pro-choice one, and would not pass any purity test the party might want to impose.  He was elected by independents, even though it’s a Democratic state.

While the teabaggers, and independents generally, might not find each state open to their efforts, they will find traction in spots, just like the Ross Perot movement did in 1992.  That movement had a leader, but when Perot wilted under the pressure of public scrutiny, the movement fizzled.

The difference today is that the teabaggers have no single leader at the moment.  Whether they will find one in Palin, or anyone else after this weekend, remains to be seen.  It may not take a person of great strength to harness the anger and frustration to assume that leadership role, though.  Sadly, enough soundbites could do it – - and insubstantial sound bites at that.

This is not to underestimate the teabagger movement, though.  Incumbents do so at their peril this year, at least.  The presidential election of 2012 is a long way off, and there’s no way to measure the staying power of a leaderless movement right now.  But for this fall, the movement will generate some results