"Republicans Strain to Ride Tea Party Tiger" prominently features Lesley Hollywood, who asserted in this December 9 blog that McInnis was late to the tea party despite a Fox News package that suggested he was the tea party candidate of choice. Also on record with the Times: Lu Busse, the 9.12 Project Colorado Coalition chair, who expressed her own concerns about Republican candidates trying to co-opt outsider-style grassroots movements in a December 10 profile.
By the way, Busse exhibited her trademark sense of humor in over-the-weekend notes to folks on her mailing list about the Times's coverage. In the first, she wrote, "I found it amusing that they put it in the left-most column." In the second, she added this observation: "I just noticed that there's small article entitled "Obama Defiant" just under the article about Tea Party on the NY Times front page. Looks like we got top billing! That's going to upset some people."
Like, perhaps, McInnis?