“I do not particularly like the very ones who need to be held accountable to be co-opting the tea party brand,” wrote the well-regarded tea party blogger Melissa Clouthier. “Ultimately, I worry it destroys the tea party — which started out as a nonpartisan group.”

Tea partiers “ought to be leery of establishment Republicans and the formation of a Congressional Tea Party Caucus,” asserted a post on the conservative Examiner website, advising activists that “if an opportunity like getting a foothold in the corridors of Washington seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

And some tea party allies in Washington also are skeptical. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) warned that the caucus may be seen as trying to “co-opt” the movement and questioned the motivations of its members, while some of his colleagues have kept their distance for fear of being branded as extremists…

Meanwhile, Democrats delightedly find themselves with a new target and have eagerly seized on the caucus, which has no official legislative role and hasn’t indicated it will produce policy papers, as their main piece of evidence in a new effort to link congressional Republicans to extremist elements.