I Believe they were initially orphaned, radical libertarians understandably shocked by the way Congress laid down for the Fed on the Bailout, who were quickly hijacked into an astroturfing operation, seeded with expert provocateurs, even before they protested in DC. Enter Dick Armey.
By the time of the Town Hall Meetings, they were well funded, organized and driven by FreedomWorks and other organizations run by former Rove associates going as far back as the Texas campaigns, funded by large elements of the Health Care Industry via FreedomWorks and sister orgs, initially with conservative media support and later with most of the mainstream media following as the story blew up. Under cryptic FreedomWorks support, they populated the net with clone info and strategy sites playing to local constituencies nationwide. Senile Dupes playig into the hands of NeoCon scumbags operating under the guise of a grassroots org.
This is how it works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing