TEA PARTY PERSPECTIVE: A reader who requests anonymity emails:

All of this Tea Party grass roots business, about how ordinary folks are getting involved in politics at the lowest level, is straight out of Heinlein’s book, _Take Back Your Government_. (I just managed to score a copy of the ’92 edition on amazon.ca.)

What I’d like to see a lot more of is fiscally conservative Democrats, who are bewildered at the party’s drift toward plutocracy and kleptocracy, do the same thing–go to war at the ward and precinct level to take their party.

Yes, that Heinlein book is technologically obsolete but surprisingly on-point in the important ways — particularly the ease of taking over your local county party apparatus. The fact that used copies are currently going for six hundred bucks on Amazon is probably proof . . . .

And, yeah, Democrats should take the lesson, too.

UPDATE: Reader Scott Littler notes that Heinlein’s book is available as a $5 ebook here.