Awwwww:

TheTeaParty.net, a well-known conservative group, reached out to supporters to say that it is "deeply embarrassed" to have failed to raise enough money in the last several weeks to fund a nationwide series of pro-gun rallies scheduled for Feb. 23. "Last week we announced that we needed to raise $100,000 to market the Day of Resistance to make sure that there are HUGE crowds at all of these rallies," read the Wednesday email from outreach director Dustin Stockman. "Unfortunately we remain well short of our goal. As of writing we have only raised $26,125.72 towards the $100,000 goal."

Day of Resistance has not explained exactly what the money would be spent on.

The announcement came shortly after Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, offered the tea party response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.

Since its successes in 2010, the tea party has been plagued by bitter splintering, the kind of behavior that decades ago helped make the American left so ineffective. The recent brouhaha over former House majority leader Dick Armey's departure from FreedomWorks, the David Koch-backed tea party campaign operation, is just one example of the internal strife. There was then, of course, that weakness at the ballot box last year.

In politics as in all else, money, money, money makes the world go round. If tea party outfits can't even adequately fund a few gun rallies, you know they're on the ropes.