WASHINGTON — To hear Buffalo-area tea party leader Rus Thompson tell it, you would

think he was talking about the Democratic Congress the tea partyers deplore.

"The infighting and corruption when money is involved is causing them all to cut each

other's throats," Thompson said on his blog Thursday.

But Thompson wasn't referring to the Democrats. He was referring to national tea party

leaders who shunned Thompson's favored candidate for governor of New York, Buffalo developer

Carl P. Paladino.

Thursday, a year after the anti-tax tea party movement sprang up out of disgust over the

Wall Street bailouts and President Obama's economic-stimulus plan, it marked its second Tax

Deadline Day protest with rallies across the country.

Graphics: Tea party at a glance

Interactive: What the tea partyers believe...

It did so amid mounting evidence that the anger-spawned energy of the frequent tea party

rallies is growing — but that it may be hard to channel.

"You could have the tea party movement split over power or control," Thompson acknowledged

in an interview.

From divisions within the movement such as the one in Buffalo, to Thursday's rallies, to

electoral races nationwide, it has become clear that the tea party is not a unified entity

— and that its impact in electing conservatives this November could vary widely from

place to place.

On the surface, though, the tea party movement looks big, angry and growing. A CBS-News/New

York Times poll found that 18 percent of Americans support the tea party movement, and the

rally in Washington was one of hundreds nationwide.

Rank-and-file protesters in Washington clearly shared a distaste for big government and a

disdain for the Obama administration.

Vendors walking through the crowd selling "Don't Tread On Me" flags appeared to be doing a

brisk business. Other protesters carried signs showing Obama and Democratic congressional

leaders behind prison bars — and one man had a handmade sign that said: "A village in

Kenya is missing its idiot."

Yet for all the unity of purpose, the man leading the rally — Mark Williams of Tea

Party Express — was the very one excoriated by Thompson on his blog.

Earlier this week, Williams abandoned Paladino in the wake of revelations that the

gubernatorial candidate had been sending racist and pornographic e-mails, and Paladino

defended himself by proudly saying he is "not politically correct."

At a rally Wednesday in Boston, Williams said, "Political correctness is going to kill us.

Political correctness led to 9/11, political correctness led to Barack Hussein Obama —

political correctness is a societal HIV. [America has] a full-blown case of AIDS, and we're

the cure."

Hearing that, Thompson wrote of Williams: "The guy is a nut case. When we are trying to

fend off the accusations of racism and homophobia, these kinds of remarks put all of us back

to step one."

Those weren't Thompson's only gripes. He was angry at Williams for distancing the Tea Party

Express from Paladino, saying in the interview: "What ... are they doing coming into New York

when they have nothing at stake here?"

When asked about former House Republican Leader Dick Armey, leader of another group allied

with the tea party movement, Thompson said: "Dick Armey is from the machine. These gray-haired

old [codgers] just need to sit down."

The dispute between Thompson and the movement's putative leaders was by no means the only

sign of division within the tea party movement.

In Wisconsin, a half-dozen tea party groups boycotted a rally in Madison because former

Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, a Republican, was among the speakers.

"Tommy is representative of the old boy network way of doing things," said Tim Dake,

organizer of the Milwaukee-based GrandSons of Liberty.

And in Tennessee, some grass-roots tea party activists are still smarting over a for-profit

Tea Party Nation convention that took place in February. Organizers of the event, which came

with a $549 registration charge, paid former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice

presidential nominee, a $100,000 speaker's fee.

"When we see someone that is attempting to turn the tea party movement into their own

little moneymaker, that's a red flag for us," said Carmon Heilmann, 50, of Germantown, Tenn.,

a member of the Mid-South Tea Party.

Nevertheless, the tea party movement should be a plus for Republicans in November's midterm

elections, said Ed Goeas, a leading Republican pollster in Washington who helps compile George

Washington University's Battleground Poll.

That poll this week found that 38 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the tea

party movement — far more than the CBS/New York Times poll reported — while 32

percent had an unfavorable impression.

Moreover, Goeas said the movement could provide an energy that would send Republican voters

to the polls this fall while disinterested Democrats stay at home.

But a mere affiliation with the tea party movement won't be enough to guarantee success for

a candidate, Goeas said. He contrasted Paladino's late-starting candidacy with the one in

Florida by U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio, who built a credible campaign early and crafted

a message that appealed to the tea party faithful. The result: Rubio is now leading in the

polls in a field that includes former Gov. Charlie Crist.

"It takes more than a couple of days to become a Marco Rubio," Goeas said.

Meanwhile, Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who works with Goeas on the Battleground

Poll, noted that the tea party movement also poses a challenge to Republicans: primaries such

as the one pitting Rubio against Crist.

"We will also see third-party challengers" springing from the tea party movement and giving

the Democrat the edge in some races, even though national political trends are running sharply

toward the GOP, Lake said.

Evidence of that conservative energy could be seen nationwide Thursday, as crowds estimated

at more than a thousand gathered in cities from Hartford, Conn., to Boise, Idaho, for the Tax

Deadline Day rallies.

Several thousand gathered amid brilliant sunshine and lingering pollen at Freedom Plaza in

Washington.

There, former "Saturday Night Live" comedian Victoria Jackson led the crowd in the chant:

"There's a communist in the White House."

Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican and a tea party favorite, told the crowd:

"We're on to this gangster government. I say it's time for these little piggies to go home."

The crowd reflected the demographics of the movement, which polls show to be overwhelmingly

white and largely populated by people 45 and older.

While the tone and intensity varied from one protester to the next, the message stayed the

same: The Obama administration is spending too much and taxing too much.

Asked why he had traveled to D.C. from Farmington, Conn., Steve Cooney pointed at his young

granddaughter nearby and said: "My granddaughter is going to be bearing a debt [Obama] is

creating."

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Blystone, 84, of Falls Church, Va., said: "I would discharge almost

every member of Congress. They don't seem to have any real idea what it takes to manage a

budget."

Most of the protesters interviewed Thursday echoed those concerns, but others gave some

indication that political persuasion of the traditional kind was

not at the top of their agenda.

Emily Cochran, 22, of Springfield, Va., carried a sign that

said: "Smash left-wing scum."

And a scruffy middle-aged man

carried a sign that said: "I didn't

come armed — this time."

Inflammatory rhetoric —

and imbroglios such as the one

surrounding Paladino —

also could hurt the tea party

movement as it tries to broaden

its appeal, political experts said.

"The incredible thing is, they

have some good points to make

— about the economy,

about the deficit," said Larry J.

Sabato, who heads the Center

for Politics at the University of

Virginia. "They should just stick

to that."

The Associated Press contributed

to this report.