They had an article in my local newpaper today about the tea-party influencing the republican elections in delaware, or somewhere. They didn't say much about them, except for that they were "ultraconservative". Neither did they write what ultraconservative meant. I am dissapoint.
Strange wording though, since "ultra-conservative" means extremely reactionary here. You know, having a king, aristocratic ruling and peasantry and stuff.
As a side note, here's a paper about economic growth and percentage of government involvement in GDP: Linky.
Tl;dr-version: The more involvement by government, the nation has a either a lesser or even stagnated economic growth, and vice versa, less government involvement in GDP caused greater economic growth. It says nothing about personal freedoms though.