Victoria Jackson: "Obama is a communist"

(CBS) - "Saturday Night Live" alum and conservative firebrand Victoria Jackson has become a voice in the national political conversation. The comedian has become prominent in the Tea Party movement, attended this year's Conservative Political Action Conference. She's also been telling anyone who will listen about her guiding belief in politics: Obama is a communist.

Jackson has been making waves in the political world since the national emergence of the Tea Party in 2009. The 51-year-old admits she had little interest in or knowledge of politics before the election of President Obama. "In my 20s, Reagan was president. I felt secure. I didn't have to vote," she writes in an article for Big Hollywood.

But for someone who's new to the political world, Jackson has not hesitated to dive right in. "Progressive is the new word for communist," Jackson said on a March 2010 episode of Fox & Friends. "It's the same goal as government control of everything and it's very obvious that Obama is trying to do that."

At this year's CPAC Jackson was on the scene selling copies of her new album. One of her songs is titled, "There's a Communist Living in the White House."

As a member of "Saturday Night Live" in the 1980s and '90s, Jackson worked with now-Sen. Al Franken. Is Jackson the Tea Party's answer to Franken's liberal politics? She seems to have found her calling as an outspoken conservative. She told CNN during CPAC, "I only woke up because we elected a communist."