My husband and I attended a small-ish side-session at CPAC - I think it was February 2010, a year after the Tea Party came into being. This session was led by the very pleasant Colin Hanna, President of Let Freedom Ring USA, Inc, Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler of Tea Party Patriots.
I barely remember what Meckler said, but I'll never forget meeting and listening to Jenny Beth Martin. She had this sour-faced Nurse Ratchet-like coldness about her. She asked everyone in the room who they thought "invented" the Tea Party, or where they first heard about the Tea Party. I can't remember her exact words. Everyone in the room answered unanimously: "Rick Santelli's rant on CNBC on February 19, 2009... we'll never forget it!"
The look on Jenny Beth's face was priceless - an "if looks could kill" expression. She appeared to be really ticked off. She then rather smugly went on that, no, the Tea Party did not start with Rick Santelli's rant... her group - Tea Party Patriots - were the "creators" of the Tea Party movement. She literally said she and Tea Party Patriots started the Tea Party movement. TPP had been "The Tea Party" for years, yada, yada.
Right then and there my husband and I wanted nothing to do with TPP, although we know that local chapters around the country do great work - there are a lot of great people under the TPP umbrella across the US.
My husband and I participated in rallies around the Capitol during the fateful weekend that ObamaCare passed - in March 2010. Some group originally had organized a mass rally on the Capitol. My husband and I didn't care who was organizing the rallies, we wanted to participate, and drove from CT to DC.
By the time we joined the crowds on the Capitol lawn, the rallies that weekend were somehow co-opted by Jenny Beth Martin and Tea Party Patriots - I have no idea how this happened, but she ran "the show" - she was up at the podium several times with many Congressmen and other speakers.
At the time we didn't care who was running the rallies - we were (and still are) so angry about ObamaCare being rammed down our throats... we just wanted to be there so our voices could be heard. As time went on over that weekend, however, there was MUCH grumbling among the crowds at how the rally had turned into "The Jenny Beth Show", and how it didn't turn out to be the rally that was originally planned. I have no idea if the original organizers of this rally would have done a better or similar job. Obama had the votes to pass the bill - there was nothing more we could do.
As I said... this is all my anecdotal two cents. I'm still currently not a fan of Jenny Beth Martin, based on my experiences with her. I don't know much about Meckler.
Well, that's the problem, right there. It's a lie. When I met up with Meckler at the 2/27/2009 event there was no "Tea Party Patriots." I will say, they adopted the name and got organized very quickly so that by 4/15/2009 they were a dominate group at the protests in CA.
Truth is, one of the largest organizing forces -- within hours of Santelli's rant -- was a twitter group known as the Don't Go Movement. They're gone now.
ChicagoTeaParty.com was up within hours of Santelli's rant going viral. As of 2/27/2009 we were still calling the demonstrations "Chicago Tea Parties," but that went by the wayside as it became obvious that a massive national movement had been born.
Check out #23.