That's what she wants everyone to believe. One poster, ansel or something like that has bought into it hook, line and sinker.
Here is something I dug up and posted on another thread:
Note the last sentenceShe's a former CEO and the Tea Party endorsed her rival. But this GOP candidate in the California Senate race calls herself an anti-elitist Tea Partier.[ So she is a self-appointed tea partier ]
Though a national Tea Party group endorsed state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore over former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in the California Republican Senate primary, Fiorina isn't holding any grudges. She's using the Tea Party movement to raise money [Ah ha that's the connection]
Fiorina's letter is loaded with Tea Party rhetoric. Fiorina declares, "As a life-long fiscal conservative, I'm ready to send a message to Washington: we have had enough government expansion and taxation!" She slams Obama for mocking "us," as if she, too, is a Tea Partier.
(DeVore was one of the few officeholders invited to speak at a Tea Party rally in Nevada in late March with Sarah Palin.) This former corporate honcho—whose stint at HP was marked by massive layoffs and controversy—wants to be seen as a Tea Partier, too.
...despite her own CEO past becoming a potential liability and Tea Party activists endorsing a rival, Fiorina has a clear political strategy: her own corporate takeover of the Tea Party.
What ansel12 pointed out, is that in the only polling (that I can find) we have of California voters that were asked about the tea party, of those that identify strongly with the tea party, Fiorina wins the highest number of them, not Devore.
The national group that endorsed Devore is the tea party express, no mystery about that.
Maybe, maybe not. Hard to tell, one group in the Tea Party doesn’t speak for others, or even all it’s memebers.
But I will say this: If the tea party as a whole in california is behind DeVore, it is not very successful. Both vote and money-wise.
So I have some doubts about DeVore having exclusive, or even a plurality, of Tea Party support.
An endorsement by a Tea Party organization, even the largest, is not necessarily indicative of overall Tea Party support. No one owns the Tea Party “movement” but a lot of groups are cashing in on the name, pols included.