The conservative red tribe is dominated by businessmen who have built or inherited fortunes. They also include Wall Street investors, oil and gas men, construction magnates, and retail executives. Mormons are well represented.

The liberal blue tribe is dominated by men from Hollywood and media entrepreneurs — often Jewish — and the leaders of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The Super PACs are not paragons of transparency, but what has been disclosed gives a sense of where the money is coming from and the interests of those giving it. Based on the donors and the origins of these groups, we can already discern what messages the Super PACs will generate in the home stretch of the campaign.

What follows is a pocket guide to the big money tribes of American politics, what they will tell you — and what they won’t.

AMERICAN CROSSROADS

Staffed by former officials from the Republican National Committee and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and associated with Karl Rove. Many consider it more important than the RNC itself. Certainly American Crossroads and Fox News control the GOP’s message in a way the Republican National Committee does not and cannot. It is not unfair to say that during a presidential election year, the Republican Party is more an adjunct to American Crossroads, than vice versa.

The funders:

• Jerry Perenchio, the former CEO of Univision, has already given a whopping $2 million to the group. Perenchio has been attacked by some right-wing commentators for his moderate stances on immigration issues. Befitting his more moderate politics, Perenchio in August signed on to the Jon Huntsman campaign as a member of the “California finance team” to help with fundraising. That move came four months after his contribution to Crossroads. Given Huntsman’s failure to pick up any steam, it’s not clear at this point what role Perenchio will play in the 2012 race. 
• Bob Perry: A Texan who made a fortune in the construction business, he has given $500,000 to Crossroads. A longtime friend of Rove, he’s been a huge donor to GOP causes for years. In 2010, he gave a staggering $7 million to Crossroads in a six-week period before Election Day. As for what issues he cares about, a spokesman once described his philosophy this way: “People call him and pitch him, and if he likes what he hears, he’ll write a check.” That includes unsavory efforts like the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack campaign against John Kerry, which Perry bankrolled.
• Robert Rowling: Another familiar name in the world of GOP fundraising, the Dallas billionaire has given $1 million to Crossroads — on top of the $2 million he gave the group during the 2010 campaign. He inherited a family oil fortune and has since become a successful investor in the hotel business, among others. The fact that Rowling’s company, TRT Holdings, owns Gold’s Gym generated a backlash in October 2010 when gay activists pointed out that Rowling’s contributions were funding “some of the most vehemently anti-gay politicians in the country.” Several San Francisco Gold’s franchises subsequently left the company. Interviewed on Fox at the time, Rowling suggested his support of Crossroads was all about “fiscal sanity” not “social issues.”

What you’ll hear: “Corrupt liberal elites squandered your hard-earned dollars on the socialist in the White House who appeases Muslims.”

Look for Crossroads to focus relentlessly on economic issues. Recent Web ads by the group hitting Obama for the stimulus package, for proposing new taxes on the wealthy, and imposing too many regulations on business offer a taste of what’s to come.

Crossroads’ favored form is the attack ad. The group has already bought billboards and radio airtime targeting Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is seen as a vulnerable Dem in 2012, for a scandal involving unpaid taxes on her private plane.

What you won’t hear: “Let’s ban abortion.” “George W. Bush was a good president.”  “Time to reinstate ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’”

RESTORE OUR FUTURE 

Founded by former aides to Mitt Romney, this group is expected to maintain the minimum legal distance between itself and Romney’s official campaign. Romney himself even spoke at a Manhattan fundraiser for the group, though — apparently for legal reasons — he left the room before an explicit appeal for money was made, the Times reported.

The funders:

• Ed Conrad: A former executive at Bain Capital, Romney’s old firm, he originally gave $1 million to Restore Our Future through a shell company, W Spann LLC, before coming forward amid media scrutiny of the transaction. Conrad is reported to be a longtime Romney friend and contributor who has otherwise not been particularly active as a GOP fundraiser or donor.
• Steve Lund and Jeremy Blickenstaff: The co-founder of the Provo, Utah-based skin care firm Nu Skin — which claims to have “unlocked the science behind the secret to looking and feeling young” — gave Restore Our Future $1 million. Lund has bankrolled Romney’s political career from the very beginning: his race against Ted Kennedy in 1994. He and his wife have given tens of thousands of dollars to Romney over the years. He is also a leader in the Mormon church and reportedly owns a valuable early copy of the Book of Mormon.

  Also pitching in $1 million to Restore Our Future is Jeremy Blickenstaff, Lund’s son-in-law and an attorney who has worked at Nu Skin. He does not have a history of political giving, but Blickenstaff did do a stint at the Marriage Law Foundation, a Utah-based group that “provides legal resources to defend and protect marriage between a husband and wife.”

• John Paulson: A hedge fund billionaire who placed a successful bet on the crash of the housing market, he gave Restore Our Future $1 million. He’s given generously to members of both parties for years, and his firm also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying on Capitol Hill on financial regulatory matters. He was also a major figure in the SEC’s fraud case against Goldman Sachs last year, which the company settled by paying a $550 million fine.
• Paul and Sandra Edgerly: Paul Edgerly, a top executive at Bain Capital, with his wife gave $1 million to Restore Our Future. He and his wife have made well over $200,000 in political donations in the past 20 years, primarily to Romney and the national and Massachusetts Republican parties. Both Harvard Business School graduates, the Edgerlys were featured in the school’s alumni magazine for building a “family clubhouse” in their backyard that features a full gymnasium, a tennis court, a batting cage, a sauna and other amenities.
• Bob Perry: The Texas construction magnate hedged his bets with Rick Perry by giving the Romney PAC  $500,000.

What you’ll hear: “We need a man who has run a business running the White House.”

The group is legally barred from coordinating expenditures — such as buying ads — with the Romney campaign, but look for it to echo Romney’s message closely. Its bare-bones website, for example, declares that “It is time that we restore our future by supporting candidates who have worked in the private sector and created jobs, who understand the economy, and who believe in America, American workers, and American values.” That candidate is Mitt Romney, the group made clear in its formation announcement in June:

Our nation is burdened by a struggling economy; our job creators who are tied up with red tape, and a growing federal government is stifling the private sector. President Obama has failed to fix the problems that affect Americans. … Restore Our Future will support our next president, Mitt Romney.

Restore Our Future appears to have kept its powder dry — so far. As of its most recent Federal Election Commission filings, which cover the first half of 2011, the group has not bought any ad time or spent money on other substantive political action.

What you won’t hear: “Mitt’s healthcare plan is superior to Barack’s.”

PRIORITIES USA ACTION

A Democratic response to Rove’s American Crossroads, this group was founded in April by former White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton and former Rahm Emanuel aide Sean Sweeney. It will essentially function as an outside arm of the Obama reelection campaign.

The funders:

• Jeffrey Katzenberg: The Dreamworks Animation CEO and former Walt Disney Studios chief gave Priorities USA Action $2 million, making him the single biggest Super PAC donor on the Democratic side and the source of over half of Priorities USA’s budget to date. He has also reportedly agreed to help raise money from others for the group, in keeping with his past as a major Democratic donor and bundler, having personally given at least $1.5 million over the past two decades. “The stakes are too high for us to simply allow the extremism of a small but well-funded right wing minority to go unchallenged,” he told USA Today.
• Service Employees International Union: The 2 million-member union known for its loyalty to the Democratic Party and President Obama — it spent $60 million to elect him in 2008 — gave $500,000 to Priorities USA Action. “We think we have to back this president in order to get America back to work,” SEIU president Mary Kay Henry explained on C-SPAN in June. And she told the Times this week, “We’re solely focused right now on trying to get the national debate focused on jobs and everybody paying their fair share. It’s important for us to keep our eyes on who’s standing in the way of working people. It’s not President Obama. It’s the corporations and the wealthy and the politicians they back who aren’t willing to pay their fair share and are applauding efforts to dismantle government.”
• Fred Eychaner: He amassed a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars through his Chicago media company, Newsweb Corp, that started out printing newspapers and eventually bought up radio and TV stations. So far he has given $500,000 to Priorities USA Action. Often described as reclusive and press-shy, Eychaner’s Chicago mansion has been the site of big Democratic fundraisers for years, and last year he was rewarded by President Obama with an appointment to the board of trustees at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. His political roots are in the gay rights movement of the late 1970s, according to a Chicago Tribune profile. Eychaner is gay and has called his philanthropy on HIV/AIDS the “most important issue in my life.”

What you’ll hear: “The GOP will cut your Medicare to fund tax cuts for the rich.”

It has already run a few ads, including a spot blaming Republicans for opposing economic reforms, giving tax breaks to the wealthy, and favoring a plan to “essentially end Medicare.” Previewing the themes of Obama’s reelection campaign if Mitt Romney is the nominee, the group bought ads in South Carolina — timed for a visit by Romney — attacking Romney’s support of Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare.

What you won’t hear: “Maintain status quo for Wall Street.” “Forever war in Afghanistan.” “Yes, we can … lead from behind.”

MAJORITY PAC

Founded this year by former aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Majority PAC is devoted to helping Democrats win in contested Senate races. “The best Senate strategists in the country are coming together for 2012 to make sure Senate races have every tool needed to win,” Susan McCue, one of the leaders of the effort and a former Reid chief of staff, told Politico. “We are approaching this as a team led by those who know how to win in the toughest, most competitive races across the country.” Reid himself along with Sen. John Kerry have sent out fundraising solicitations for the group, with Reid’s pitch explicitly framing Majority PAC as a means to counter “the deep pockets and nasty tactics of Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers and their network of corporate-backed special interest groups.”

The funders:

• Steve Bing: Another loyal Democratic donor from Hollywood, Bing inherited a family real estate fortune and has been a successful film producer through his company, Shangri-La Entertainment. He gave $250,000 to Majority PAC. Besides the millions of dollars he has given to the Democratic Party over the year, he has also put big money behind a 1998 California ballot initiative to tax tobacco products to pay for new government programs. In 2006, he spent a record $49 million to push Proposition 87, another California initiative that would have used new taxes on oil companies to develop alternative fuels. It was defeated.
• SEIU: The union (see description above) has given $250,000 to Majority PAC so far.

What you’ll hear: “Tea Party bullies want to cut your Medicare and Obamacare to pay for tax cuts for Wall Street.”

Noting that 23 Senate Democrats are up for reelection in 2012 — compared to just 10 Republicans — Majority PAC says it will run “a transparent, low-overhead, take-no-prisoners Independent Expenditure campaign, [to] aggressively contest critical open seats, exploit opportunities to take over Republican seats and expand our firewall, and respond to attacks from Rove and his allies on Democratic Senate candidates.” So far the group’s website features state-specific ads from an affiliate group seizing on the GOP plan to end Medicare.

What you won’t hear: “America yearns for Harry Reid’s Las Vegas gravitas.”

HOUSE MAJORITY PAC

Yet another liberal Super PAC with deep ties to Democratic officialdom, it was founded this past spring by Ali Lapp, the former campaign director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, along with a couple of other former DCCC officials. The goal: win a Democratic majority in the House.

The funders:

• AFSCME: The 1.6 million-member American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees has given House Majority PAC $200,000. It recently launched its own ad campaign arguing that passing Obama’s “American Jobs Act” would also have the effect of increasing government revenues and decreasing the deficit. Expect to see the name of the public-employees union keep popping up in campaign finance reports: In 2010, it spent nearly $90 million helping Democratic candidates.
• Donald Sussman: The head of multibillion-dollar Connecticut hedge fund Paloma Partners and the husband of Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, Sussman has given $150,000 to House Majority PAC. His giving to Democrats predates his marriage to Pingree this year: Sussman has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic groups and candidates in the last 20 years. He was thrust into Maine politics in 2010 when Pingree was criticized for taking trips on his private jet. He is on the board of the Israel Policy Forum, an American liberal Zionist group, and the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress.
• SEIU: The union (see above) has given $185,000 to the House Majority PAC.
• Fred Eychaner: The Chicago media mogul (see above) has given $100,000 to the House Majority PAC.

What you’ll hear: “Eric Cantor and Tea Party bullies want to wreck government and Medicare to pay for tax cuts for the rich.”

Like the other Dem Super PACs, the House Majority PAC has seized on Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare. Its website says, “We’re fighting against the recently-passed Republican budget, which provides trillions in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, but ends Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher program and forcing seniors to find and purchase private health insurance.” The House Majority PAC already ran an ad in New York’s special election attacking Republican Bob Turner on Medicare, and another ad against Wisconsin Republican Sean Duffy for his vote in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. The Duffy spot also echoed President Obama’s recent focus on private jet owners.

What you won’t hear: “Greenlight Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.” ” America yearns for Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco style.”

- – - – - – - – - -

Of course, the red and the blue tribes are hardly the only players in the political campaign. They have the deep pockets to dominate the airwaves with their advertising. But with the spread of the Internet, the influence of broadcast television is weakening.

There’s an invisible tribe too. There are a slew of political nonprofits that will also be running campaign ads in 2012 who, because of their classification in the tax code, do not have to release donor information. So it’s worth remembering there will be a lot of anonymous money in the game.

We’ll look at them in a future article .

One of those episodes apparently involves bribery by a Koch subsidiary in France, according to the piece by Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott. He reports that “Bloomberg reporters have been trolling among former Koch employees overseas in search of disaffected voices willing to talk,” but Tapscott suspects the story may be animated by bias against the Tea Party. And he notes that, “Koch USA officials say they were as surprised and angered as anybody else when they were first apprised of the bribery allegations, and moved as quickly as possible to get to the bottom of the situation and fix it.”

All three of the prebuttal stories cite an unnamed source who was interviewed for the Bloomberg story; it’s not clear if that same source spoke with all three publications. The Examiner describes the source as a former government official.

Another one of the issues addressed in the Bloomberg article will be the Kochs’ past business dealings with Iran, according to the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis, who also argues that this is not “terribly newsworthy” and the Kochs are being singled out for their politics.

Meanwhile, Paul Bedard of U.S. News reports:

One of those interviewed by Bloomberg for the upcoming article said the firm received four pages of single-spaced questions, all dealing with old trade and environmental problems and issues the company says it has fixed. None were about the firm’s politics or the Koch brother’s support for conservative causes, though the firm believes that is the focus.

Clearly, the Kochs are nervous about what Bloomberg has coming. And as it turns out, they’ve used the prebuttal strategy before.

In April 2010 I got an unsolicited email from Koch Industries’ spokeswoman offering to “reiterate some important facts.” She said that Koch Industries and the Koch brothers had never funded the Tea Party, in case I was wondering. That, of course, was not true. And a few months later, Jane Mayer’s now famous expose on the Kochs and the Tea Party was published in the New Yorker.

Bloomberg Markets spokesman Drew Kerr told me he can’t comment on forthcoming stories, adding, “you should always check out Bloomberg Markets’ website and magazine because one never knows what may appear.”

I found the same passion and anger that Salon’s David Talbot experienced on his visit to Zuccoti ten days ago. But the protest has matured; some of the occupiers have been sleeping outside for over a week. There is now a debate raging over defining the goals of Occupy Wall Street, and indeed whether there should be concrete political goals at all. Oddly, despite the movement’s name, “Wall Street” — meaning the nexus of irresponsible bankers and traders headquartered in southern Manhattan — did not figure in a lot of the conversation that I heard. This is about more than financial regulation.

This is a movement in search of a message, a community trying to define itself by listening. There seem to be two broad camps: one believes Occupy Wall St. should adopt a specific demand to address unequal distribution of wealth in America (views vary, of course, about what policy should be advocated to achieve this); while the other camp is focused on creating a spectacle that will create its own momentum, grow larger, and define its goals at some undetermined point in the future.

Twice daily, the protesters hold a general assembly meeting which, because police are not allowing loud speakers, relies on a call-and-response “human mic” system of amplification. That means it’s not an ideal forum for complex political or strategic conversations; most of the announcements are practical or procedural. Much of the political dialogue takes place informally, in smaller groups around the park.

A taste of what was covered at Wednesday afternoon’s hour-long general assembly:

–updates from the food committee and the comfort committee, which distributes blankets, dry clothes, et cetera;

–a reminder that 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. are quiet hours, as determined by community consensus;

–the announcement of a training session on how to talk to reporters;

–an update on progress in setting up a credit union account to handle financial transactions;

–an update from the sanitation committee, which reported praise for the cleanliness of the protesters from lunchtime regulars at the park;

–a call to members of any actors’ union to try to reach out to other members to participate;

–an announcement about “wealth distribution reform” fliers;

–an open offer to mend clothes;

–an invitation to a group meditation session;

–a message of support from Mexico, translated from Spanish;

And so on.

After the general assembly, I listened in on a smaller group (click for larger image) tackling the big questions: What should be the goals of Occupy Wall Street, if any? Is it a protest or a movement? What is its direction?

One man wanted a simple “tax the rich” message. Another wanted to focus on rolling back the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which deregulated the campaign finance system.

There should be no sense of urgency about setting concrete political goals, a third argued. “We really have all the time in the world if people keep coming out here,” he said.

A woman questioned the very idea of demands. “The media wants to box us in; don’t let them trap us,” she said.

“The goal is to expand this movement,” said a fourth man. “Our demand? Join us.”

I met one protester, Brooklyn librarian Chris Masiano (right), who was disheartened by what he called “the nebulousness and formlessness of it all.” On his day off and attending Occupy Wall St. for the second time, Masiano was doing his best to nudge the direction of the protest by handing out pamphlets from the Democratic Socialists of America. The fliers outline an agenda of Medicare for all, a restoration of the right to form unions, and a range of other social welfare programs.

“The impulse to avoid top-down, centralized control by a small group of self-declared leaders is a healthy one,” he said. “However, I do think that the opposite impulse that seems to be animating this project is frustrating.”

Our conversation was briefly interrupted by a woman seeking directions to the group meditation session.

“That’s a perfect example of the therapeutic aspect of [the protest],” Maisano said. He believes there is some value in that, but it’s not enough.

“I’m in a union, and I’m very happy I’m in a union. I think it’s still a very good tool to wage a defensive struggle to keep what you already have,” he said. “But I think we need to build new organizations and institutions that are appropriate for our times that will enable working people and poor people to make gains. I don’t think we’ve done that yet, and I hope [Occupy Wall St.] can be part of that process.”

Another protester, Manhattan resident Bill Dobbs, sees the occupation of Zuccoti Park as an important first step. “It’s a populist outcry. The hope is to spark more organizing,” he said.

A self-described “gay civil libertarian” and a veteran of ACT UP, the political advocacy group that sprung up in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, Dobbs told me there are two things needed for a protest movement to grow — and he sees at least the potential for both in Zuccoti Park.

“When people found these two ingredients — anger and fun — ACT UP really took off, and that’s when things began to move much faster.”

I did count at least 20 reporters, photographs, and videographers around the park in the space of an afternoon, and early complaints about a media blackout seem to have faded. Indeed, there are plenty of articles about the protest this week, thanks in part to the NYPD. (The quality and tone of the coverage, of course, is another question.)

“I’ve been feeling impotent,” said Chuck Baroo, a 71-year-old Rivderale resident who came down after first hearing about the protest this week on the radio. The Bronx, the borough of his birth, is the poorest urban county in the country, Baroo noted. “It’s not gotten better, it’s gotten worse,” he said. Baroo’s parents, who emigrated to the United States from Kashmir, “really believed in the country. I don’t think they would recognize it today.”

What does he want to see come out of the protests?

“I’d like to see the witnessing continue. I’d like to see the dialogue continue. I’d like it to become city-wide, maybe nationwide.”

The usually perfunctory approval process for BREC membership was changed at the meeting in order to publicly vet Hamze and to then vote on his application using a secret ballot. He was the only one of 11 candidates rejected.

The Miami Herald was there:

At times, when he addressed the packed room at the Sheraton Suites in Fort Lauderdale, a few members shouted out among the crowd of about 300.

“Terrorist!” said one man.

“Let him speak!” said another. …

“I don’t have a positive impression of Mr. Hamze. I don’t think he will be an asset to our party,” said Scott Spages, who is involved in programs concerning radical Islam at his church, Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale. …

A new litmus test was then born: Do you support Rep. Allen West? The tea-party Republican has repeatedly denounced Islam and clashed with Hamze. So has Joe Kaufman, chairman of the group Americans Against Hate and former vice-chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition of South Florida. “Are you willing to support Congressman Allen West… as a Republican?” Kaufman said loudly in the microphone. “Will you denounce terrorism?”

Some Republicans told the Herald they objected to the fact that Hamze is the director of the Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, citing the fact that CAIR was named an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a material support for terrorism case in Texas several years ago. The list of “co-conspirators” in that case — which involved sending money to the Palestinian organization Hamas — ran to more than 300 groups and individuals, none of whom were charged with breaking the law.

Joe Kaufman, who Hamze told me today appeared to be the leader of the effort to vote down his candidacy, is a former Republican Jewish Coalition official who now leads a group called Americans Against Hate. His ideology is perhaps best captured in a eulogy he wrote for the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane.

Hamze, for his part, told me he rose at the meeting to respond to his critics, telling the crowd, “All of this terrorism stuff is garbage. I’m a law-abiding citizen. I follow the Constitution. I love my children. I love this country.”

He plans to attend Broward Republican meetings as a member of the public.

“They can’t stop me from attending the meetings. I believe I can accomplish my goals of helping the party and introducing a Muslim Republican to candidates so they know Muslim Republicans are out there,” he said.

“The ones that were most positive was a meeting with two counsels for Marco Rubio. They read all the pleadings, they are aware of the issues,” said Taitz, reached at her Orange County dental office.

She now believes both that the birth certificate Obama released in April is a forgery and also that Obama is committing “clear social security fraud — for which anybody would be in prison.”

The two Rubio staffers, according to Taitz, were general counsel Leonard Collins and legislative assistant J.R. Sanchez. Rubio’s office did not return a call seeking comment, but here’s how Taitz described the encounter on a Birther website:

They were very supportive and very helpful. One of them is Leonard Collins; the other is J.R. Sanchez. Although maybe not as much as Sen. Coburn’s chief of staff, they are very much aware of what is going on. As a matter of fact, in my presence, they went online to the Selective Service website, and they checked their own Selective Service registration to make sure that indeed, when you answer with your full name, your birth date, and your social security number, you can get verification. Each one of them went online and did it for himself to make sure that this indeed was correct. Assistant Legal Counsel Sanchez was very supportive, and he actually got in touch with Mr. Jipping, who is the legal counsel for Sen. Orrin Hatch. Hatch is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both Mr. Sanchez and Mr. Schwarz urged Mr. Jipping to give me an opportunity to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A spokeswoman for Allen West confirmed that the congressman’s chief of staff, Jonathan Blyth, met with Taitz on Thursday, but she maintained the congressman has no interest in Birtherism.

“This is a woman who came by to drop off some material and the chief of staff was polite enough to answer her questions,” said West spokeswoman Angela Sachitano. “[Blyth] was quiet most of the time.”

Taitz maintains that Blyth “promised if the issue comes along, West well vote in favor of disclosure for application of a social security number that Obama is fraudulently using, and access to the original birth certificate.”

West himself has previously flirted with Birtherism.

Taitz tells me her goal in all this is to obtain for an invitation to testify at a congressional committee about her never-ending legal crusade to prove the president is not a natural-born citizen.

She said that Jonathan Nabavi, legislative counsel to Rep. Steve King (R-IA), “stated that they do follow the issue. They believe that the social security issue is much more explosive than the birth certificate issue.”

King famously joked on the floor of the House last year, that ” there’s one [birth certificate] in this country we haven’t seen.”

Among the other staffers Taitz says she met with are: Michael Schwartz, chief of staff to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK); Holt Lackey, counsel at the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Lamar Smith (R-TX); Luke Holland, a legislative assistant to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) (who once said Birthers “have a point”); and an assistant to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).

I’ve sought comment from all the offices involved and will update this post if I hear back.

UPDATE: Brian Phillips, communications director for Sen. Mike Lee, sends this note about his office’s encounter with Taitz:

Mrs. Taitz did not “meet” with our office in the widely understood sense. She arrived at our office unannounced and requested to speak with someone about a “homeland security” issue. She was afforded five minutes with a staffer. Once it was clear that her issue did not reflect one of critical national security importance, she was thanked and the meeting ended.

“A green jobs-fueled recovery is a theory, and is yet unproven. There is a lot more green, in the way of cash, and a lot less energy and jobs than anticipated,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) declared this week, adding that, “It is reasonable to predict that we could have the collapse of the entire solar panel manufacturing business in America.”

In response, the solar power trade group in Washington has launched an aggressive P.R. campaign portraying Solyndra as an outlier and the industry as a promising one.

For an update on the case and the implications for the industry at large, I spoke to Grist staff writer David Roberts, who has been covering Solyndra closely.

What is the basic Republican narrative in this case, and what exactly is being alleged about the Obama administration?

As is typical in these kind of faux scandals, it can be hard to tell exactly what is being alleged. There’s just a lot of sort of sturm und drang and hand-waving going on. But if you drill down, basically what Republicans are saying is that it was knowable that this company was in trouble and had a terrible business model but because it was politically connected, Obama officials leaned on the Department of Energy to rush through the approval for the loan guarantee. The broader charge is, “This is what you get for propping up the kinds of energy that are dependent on subsidies. This is what you get when the federal government mixes itself up with specific funding decisions and picking winners and losers and so on.”

Obviously the Republicans’ broad goal is to discredit a government effort to boost this industrial sector, and indeed more broadly to discredit renewable energy entirely.

The political connection here is that a Solyndra investor is an Obama donor?

One of the big investors in Solyndra is a fund that is backed by George Kaiser, a guy who donated heavily to Obama’s campaign. That’s what they’re hanging everything on. But of course that was just one of a range of investors. Another was the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame, who no one would accuse of being Obama toadies. I don’t think anybody is even alleging that there was open collusion between the donor and Obama. The idea is more that the administration decided to do a favor for a contributor.

In February 2011, the loan guarantee was restructured because DOE concluded that it was better to try to get the company through the hard times than to just let it go. That allowed them to pull in more private money by restructuring the loan guarantee such that the private investors would have priority if something went wrong and the company was liquidated. The private investors would be paid back first. That gave a hint of impropriety that the GOP needed to go full hysterical.

[Ed. note: Read a comprehensive take on Solyndra's financing here. ]

The FBI raid Solyndra’s headquarters earlier this month. Do we know what the bureau is investigating?

We don’t at this point. Solyndra executives were telling public officials, “We’re doing fine,” right up until the company went under. So — this is just a surmise — the FBI may be investigating whether the company knew more than they let on. But as far as I know, there is no concrete evidence of wrongdoing on Solyndra’s part, yet.

How explicit have the Republicans been about trying to broaden this scandal to discredit the entire solar industry?

The proximate goal here is to bloody the Obama administration, so most of the rhetoric has focused on vague allegations of impropriety by the administration. Once they establish that this is a scandal, the step after that will be to try to kill the loan guarantee program for renewable energy. The House Republican leadership is now trying to cut the program in exchange for Tea Party votes for a bill to avoid a government shutdown.

There are some Republicans, though, who recognize that this is a smart program. Of all people, [Rep.] Joe Barton yesterday said that Solydnra was not reason enough alone to kill the loan guarantee program. I don’t think a freestanding effort to kill this program in particular has the votes to pass the House. And even if it did, it would die in the Senate.

How much does the solar industry even need government assistance at this point? 

The industry still needs the government. Every industry does in this economy. It’s sort of unfair to try to judge the performance of a loan program in the context of a massive, borderline depression. These are small companies. Even if they have a good idea out of a lab, there’s still that valley they have to go through where they’re scaling up to a market-ready product. And the government has always been involved in helping companies at that stage.

How much of a blow do you think the scandal is dealing to the industry? Is it going to be a problem for the long term?

I thought early on that Republicans were going to ride this as long and hard as they could, that it would be just like Climategate. That means they would make a huge deal of it up front, launch a bunch of investigations, cast a bunch of aspersions and make it synonymous in the public’s head with the whole enterprise of clean energy. But I’ve actually been surprised that the Obama administration has pushed back against this pretty hard. And the press has been less gullible than they usually have been. Greens have been there. The pushback has been stronger and better than I would have expected. If I had to guess now — and obviously there’s a lot left to play out — I would say no, it probably won’t end up being that big.