The irrepressible Kinky Friedman – songwriter, novelist, former Texas gubernatorial candidate – took to the Daily Beast in an effort to help Democrats understand the strange brew of the Tea Party movement.

Irrepresible lede:

I’m 65 years old, though I read at the 67-year-old level. I’m an old school, independent Democrat. Hell, I can’t afford to be a Republican.

But Kinky can afford some advice for the current Democrat-industrial complex: Stop misunderestimating the Tea Bag set.

[T]hey began calling the Tea Party folks ignorant. (Recent polling shows the Tea Party to be better educated and more affluent than most Americans.) The Democrats did not hold their fire, however. It wasn’t long before some of the misguided among them began attacking this windmill like a misanthropic, maniacal Don Quixote.

Finally, because the growing crowds of Tea Party people were mostly comprised of whites, they called them racist. They didn’t call NASCAR or Jimmy Buffett racists, although their audiences are mainly white . . .  Calling the Tea Party racist is like saying that because there are no Orthodox Jews in the crowd at the Grand Ol’ Opry, it must be anti-Semitic. The truth is that the Grand Ol’ Opry crowd is probably more pro-Israel than the Obama administration.

And here’s the problem, Kinky says:

The race-baiting tactic demonstrated the desperation of the Tea Party’s attackers. Yet to my unfurnished eyes, the early Tea Party folks looked like a convention of harmless, if fairly cranked-up Walmart greeters.

Conclusion: If they don’t get their wits about them, it will be Democratic incumbents saying “Welcome to Walmart” after this fall’s election.