Henthorn

By his own reckoning, Henthorn is a "born leader."

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

Zack aspires to serve his dad as a security officer, once Henthorn is elected as senator.

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

By the time the rally is over, the Ohioans have scattered so that Henthorn is alone on the streets of Washington with Dale Unroe.

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

The toilets are precious few, with excruciatingly long queues, and when Henthorn comes back, he declaims, "Whoever planned this thing was no logistician."

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

Unroe frequently drives up to Dayton from his home in Cincinnati, an hour south, to crash at the comfortable ranch home Henthorn shares with his wife, their youngest son, and three tiny pugs.

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

Henthorn purses his lips, regarding the question as fair.

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

Henthorn busies himself by walking the perimeter of the entire crowd, roughly three miles, in search of portable toilets to which he can direct his charges.

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

We retreat from the crowd and sit down under a tree, where Henthorn tells me that when he was an airplane mechanic in An Khe, Vietnam, in 1966, he was exposed to Agent Orange for four months.

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

"And I said, 'I'm not going to run for the U.S. presidency,'" Henthorn continues.

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010

One morning, Henthorn takes me out to Wright-Patterson and shows me where the Air Force's B-52 crews once slept, in an underground bunker he calls a "mole hill."

Tea Party road trip: What the movement wants -- and why Bill Donahue 2010