The Coffee Party Heats Up [Should Tea Partiers Worry?]

Newsweek ^ | April 24th 2010 | Steve Tuttle

[Steelfish]

The Coffee Party Heats Up Tired of all the Tea Party talk, Annabel Park decided to throw a Coffee Party—and 200,000 people showed up.

By Steve Tuttle | NEWSWEEK Apr 22, 2010

When Annabel Park imagined what it would be like to head a new national political movement, here is what she had in mind: a coming together of engaged, intelligent citizens who had tired of the angry rhetoric and accusations of the Tea Partiers; Americans of all political persuasions joining in a spirit of equanimity to discuss the nation's problems, and maybe even share a laugh. It was this beautiful vision that danced in Park's head on a recent Saturday as she made her way to Busboys and Poets, a cafe in Washington, D.C., for one of nearly 500 Coffee Party meetings taking place nationwide that day. She knew the house would be full—word had spread quickly on the group's swelling Facebook page. Park, a documentary filmmaker, was especially pleased that C-Span had arranged to broadcast the meeting.

But from the moment folks in the crowd stood up to speak their minds, Park knew these people had not come to sip cappuccinos and set an example of civility for an overheated nation. They were angry. They hated the Tea

[cake_crumb]

Worried about a Dem operative from the NY Slimes? No. But we SHOULD out her whenever possible.

[okie01]

Their first rally drew a total of 8 people. And at least one of those was a journalist.

Three of them, actually.

But it's growing. Just saw a photo of a Coffee Party in Tucson. I counted eighteen...

[airedale]

It appears that it’s people who signed up on FaceBook as friends. Probably has connections to someone like MoveOn.org etc and put the message out that way and their rabid members signed up. No real effort. My guess is that they had something sent out to an email list of FaceBook members making it really easy to join just click link.

[John-Irish]

Lot of white people in this ‘’Coffee’’ crowd, eh?

[lowbridge]

John Roberts and Kiran Chetry omitted mentioning that Annabel Park, the founder of the so-called Coffee Party, worked as a volunteer for President Barack Obama's presidential campaign, during an interview on Wednesday's American Morning

Yep, and Newsweek omits it too:

"All of a sudden Park was a political leader—of what, she didn't quite know—and the target of right-wing fury. Conservative bloggers unearthed—scandal!—that she had once briefly worked for The New York Times and supported Sen. Jim Webb, a moderate Democrat from Virginia."

[pillut48]

Lies, lies and more lies by NewsWEAK.
Posted yesterday: The Coffee Party Heats Up (Newsweak:*200,000* 'showed up' LIE!!)

[magslinger]

[NathanR]

Coffee Party? Never heard of it. Are they libertarians or something?

No
At the Tea Party I attended some people were handing out Ayn Rand samplers (a book of extracts of her writings.) It seems to me that libertarians go to Tea Parties, not the so called coffee parties.

[pillut48]

They got that number from the Coffee Party FACEBOOK PAGE!

[FrankR]

The mere fact that some dolt named this "me too" party the "coffee" party shows that they don't have a freakin' clue as what the TEA party movement is all about.

It's obviously very hard getting through to them that TEA is an acronym for "Taxed Enough Already". What does "coffee" stand for? Oh wait, how about "Coalition Of Freaky F**kers Envying Everything"?

Whatever.

But you can count on one thing in their childish existence; they will FOR everything the TPM is AGAINST, and AGAINST everything the TPM is FOR.

Like any picture, the will be the "negative", and their goals will be as well.

I can't imagine that a "party" of people who are FOR taxes and FOR big government, and AGAINST the Constitution are going to get very far with the American people.

It's a fringe brain fart intended to try and try - in an adolescent convoluted way - to discredit the TPM. The best thing to do is to ignore them...don't get into a pissing match with them, as that is what they (and the media) wants.

They would like to have us arguing about which group had the most people, etc. That is silly, childish stuff...and we should not participate. The press ALWAYS tries to get two entities "fighting", as that makes more news for them.

Let them go and have their COFFEE partys, and like all things liberal, it will degenerate into nothing more than a frat "party"...unless they can wrangle some federal funds to support something bigger.

They will end up like that big threat of the TPM "crashers" we had a couple of weeks ago...fizzled like a 10-cent bottle rocket.

Liberals are knee-jerk activist; they want to come on strong, following Bush's "shock and awe" technique I guess, but they have no follow-thru and are about as organized as the Post Office.

Like I said, a fart in a hurricaine....

[GeronL]

Never ever trust the media.

[mlocher]

Park, a 42-year-old Korean-American with a smile that can only be described as "kind," regularly tried to steer the talk back to the group's more centrist principles.

Park is getting an education on what the loony left is really all about. Centrist principles my @ss.

"I like the civility idea, but I hate the Tea Party people," said attendee Karen Anderson.

The Tea Party hates certain leftist ideals, not people. The left is unable to be civil at all.

By the end of the event, some in the crowd had decided the movement, barely two months old at the time, needed a new leader. China Dickerson, a 26-year-old community organizer, said the Coffee Party wouldn't last "unless we get someone a little more powerful to head it."

A peaceful discussion of leftist ideas goes nowhere. They need hate to get their point across. A civil discussion is fruitless because they do not want that.

[pillut48]

OH MY GOD, THE COFFEE PARTY IS A RACIST GROUP!!!!

I WENT TO THEIR FLICKR SITE LISTED ON THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE. I HAD TO SCROLL THROUGH 12, COUNT THEM, *TWELVE* IMAGES BEFORE I EVER SAW AN AFRICAN AMERICAN FACE!!! THERE'S ONLY ABOUT 1% FACES OF COLOR IN THEIR GROUPS--THAT IS SOOOOOOO RACIST!!!! Reported to Drudge for action! This kind of anti-African-American group should be ashamed of themselves!!!!

/(do I really need a you know what here??)

[ronnie raygun]

I like coffee. shame they have to use it. Why not cesspool party, leechfield party, landfill party, swamp a##party, Or I like being abused so may I have another party

[SkyDancer]

So what are those fifty or so people going to do?

[pillut48]

How many “faces of color” were in the crowd?

[okie01]

How many “faces of color” were in the crowd?

From memory: two Latino(?)guys, three black guys, one white guy. The remainder were white ladies.

Note that virtually every attendee of the article's subject Coffee Party were female.

[Pessimist]

“The notoriety didn’t really hurt: the group now has more than 200,000 members”

But the headline said 200k “showed up”. LOL!

[cake_crumb]

I checked out her Facebook page shortly after she started her little decaf campaign. Judging by most of the comments, you’re right about the Moveon types. Unfortunately, as with any crowd, there are probably some well meaning individuals who want to take a stand against Obama but have been taken in by the state run media and think the TEA crowd is too rowdy, so they joined. Shouldn’t take the the brighter ones to smell a Rat. I hope.

[marstegreg]

Wow, those 200,000 people look suspiciously like one guy with a sign (based on the photo)