How can the GOP coopt a movement that doesn't want to be coopted?

“Definitely, they need to merge,” Palin, now a Fox News pundit, said on the air Thursday. “I think those who are wanting the divisions and the divisiveness and the controversy — those are the ones who don’t believe in the message. And they’re the ones, I think, stirring it up. We need to ignore that, and we need to forge ahead with a cohesive message.”

But a merger has major obstacles — not the least of which is that tea-party leaders want nothing to do with any political party.

“People are so angry they don’t even want these political parties at their events,” said Dale Robertson, president and founder of TeaParty.org, which he said has 6 million members. “I’ve been attacked viciously by Republican groups. They’ve called me all kinds of slanderous names.”

Robertson said he has reached out repeatedly to Steele but has been rebuffed. “He hasn’t called me back,” Robertson said. “I find that disconcerting.”