Further evidence of the mounting tensions between Tea Party-style conservatives and the Republican Party establishment just flew over the transom:

It arrived in the form of an email from the Club for Growth -- a political group that espouses many of the same anti-tax, small government ideas as the Tea Party. Chris Chocola, a former Republican congressman who heads the club, is blasting former Senate Republican leader Trent Lott for comments in yesterday's Washington Post"which disparaged both the Tea Party movement and U.S. Senator Jim DeMint."

The key quote: "We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples," Lott told the Post.

DeMint is a Republican from South Carolina who has been backing conservative candidates, sometimes against his own party leadership. In Kentucky, for example, DeMint backed Rand Paul, who ended up snatching the GOP nomination from Trey Grayson, the favorite of home state Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate's Republican leader.

Lott is now a name partner in one of Washington's hottest lobbying firms and Chocola took aim at that in his statement:

Corporate lobbyist Trent Lott is apparently afraid Congress' incoming freshman class will put an end to the earmarks, handouts, and bailouts that make him rich. He should be. Real economic conservative reform, like that advocated by the Club for Growth and the Tea Parties, will put the K Street favor factory out of business.

The Club for Growth's political action committee endorsed DeMint when he first ran for the Senate in 2004 and is backing his bid for re-election this year.

(Posted by Kathy Kiely)