Erik Telford, AFP's director of online strategy and a leading figure on the right in the deployment of the internet as a political tool, exhorted Tea Party members to attack politicians through their blogs.

"Pick your least favourite public official and beat the crap out of him every day," Telford told the audience. "It's fun, and people will start to notice and you will have a tremendous impact.

"The way to beat the left is to link more and more to one another and to link to articles that are in tune with our ideology and that will push the articles to the top of Google search.""

An idea funded by the Koch brothers