By Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk

It was an inauguration ball with red carpet and tuxedos, but Obama was emphatically not invited.

There was the Earth Haters table, for climate change deniers; the Hate Mongers table, for radio shock jocks; the Bible Thumpers table, for radical evangelicals; the Fat Cats table, for capitalist lovers; and the self-explanatory Shameless Self-Promoters table.

Welcome to Glenn Beck's inaugural misfit ball, a gathering in Dallas on Monday night of ultra-conservatives, conspiracy theorists and Tea Party supporters who consider themselves outcasts from Washington's celebrations 1,300 miles away.

"Join some of the infamous 'misfits' no longer welcome in Obama's America – champions of freedom, smaller government, and the Constitution," read the invitation, and scores accepted, turning up in gowns and black tie at Beck's Dallas studio for an event broadcast on his Blaze TV network.

Invited guests included Rick Santorum, John Hoffmeister, the former head of Shell, and Dana Loesch, a conservative talk host.

"It's more the proud rabble and local leaders of the heartland than the crème de la crème of Washington. It includes people who wouldn't even be invited to a Republican president's inauguration! Read why;