Mike Sunnucks, in the PBJ, analyzes the things that motivates Arizona’s wing of the Tea Party folks:

[T]he anti-tax wing of the tea parties was nowhere to be found when the Proposition 100 sales tax referendum was easily passed by voters. Brewer backed that sales tax hike despite it going against conservative dogma. The governor’s signing of the immigration bill erased her tax increase sins.

Right now, the tea party blend in Arizona is anti-immigration and socially conservative. Sure there are tea party folks who care about spending, taxes and Wall Street bailouts, as well as some who simply don’t like Barack Obama being president or trust his own birth papers. But right now, immigration and its social implications are fueling everything political in the state — including the tea party.