ONE dirty little secret of the 2010 election is that it won t be a political tragedy for Democrats if a Tea Party icon like Sharron Angle or Joe Miller ends up in the United States Senate. Angle, now synonymous with racist ads sliming Hispanics, and Miller, already on record threatening a government shutdown, are fired up and ready to go as symbols of G.O.P. extremism for 2012 and beyond.

Mr. Singer, professorial and soft-spoken, used a gathering of business and government leaders at the conservative Manhattan Institute to lash out at indiscriminate attacks by political leaders against anything that moves in the world of finance. Government efforts to take over and run the economy through more regulations, he warned, threatened to ruin the United States standing as the world leader in finance. As the head of a $17 billion hedge fund, Mr. Singer, a self-described Barry Goldwater conservative who is 66, is using his financial might to try to change those policies. He has become one of the biggest bankrollers of Republican causes, giving more than $4 million of his money and raising millions more through fund-raisers he hosts for like-minded candidates who often share his distaste for what they view as governmental over-meddling in the financial industry.

Rachel Maddow talks with Libertarian political consultant and blogger Stephen Gordon about the effort by Republicans and corporate interests to take over the actual grassroots Libertarian anti-tax, small-government movement. This video is from MSNBC’s News Live, broadcast Dec. 29, 2009. Download video via RawReplay.com