Frankly, while my spirit was always “Tea Party,” I was never a ‘joiner’. I learned that back in 1968 when I ended up serving overseas 7 out of the 8 years I was in the military.
I own guns, and inevitably some gun store gets my email and sells it off. I got a dozen emails a day from multiple groups claiming to be some element of a “Tea Party” or another. Each one asking for money.
Sometimes, I saw people on TV claiming to be the head of this or that “Tea Party” and I never heard of them. Some of them were making claims that I didn’t agree with. Honestly, I think there are power hungry people in all walks of life and they will glom onto anything to get it.
In its present state, a “Tea Party” cannot exist as a sole entity against liberalism that coalesces all the disparate factions of conservatism: the Ron Paulistas, the Constitution Party, Libertarian party, conservatives and Republican discontents, et al.
I believe the “Tea Party” sentiment is still there - strongly, but the competition to claim it is immense. Personally, I believe it won’t focus until liberalism becomes so extreme, so oppressive that they are forced to go after the worst first.
That time is going to come, sooner than one might think.
When we let Homosexuals like Anderson Cooper define us as ‘tea-baggers’. Tea party over.
My own personal theory is that it was over when Sarah Palin told Mark Levin that she was not going to run for President, and then Perry, Bachmann, Cain, and Santorum all flamed out, with the able assistance of Team Romney and the GOP-E.
FreeRepublic.com
;-)
Why should any Tea Party tell you what they are doing? If you want to find out join one —
Haven’t you heard? The TEA Party died! Doesn’t exist. It was just a couple of old cranks. /s
You’re here. The mirror.
The Tea Party was and is a grass roots voting block.
The election is over. We are right here among you... waiting for the next election... if there ever is one.
The Tea Party is just as powerless now as all of the dim-witted idiots who will now lose their job because they didn’t listen to the tea party. (referring to both democrats and republicans)
Tea party’s message now is OK... you win. DONT BLAME US!
I’ve been getting a ton of e-mail from the Tea Party groups and Americans for Prosperity. I get the feeling they are trying to regroup so that the GOP elite won’t screw us again with another obama lite candidate. While some in the media are saying the GOP needs to lighten up on social issues and immigration, I feel that they are playing the part of the pied piper. Like my mom said—if your friend told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it? This is where the elititsts want us to go.
I would look for a local Tea Party group. If you can’t find one locally, look for a County one, or a State group. I don’t trust any national group.
They are the most active as far as organized events on a larger scale.
There are SOOOOO many groups out there...some worthy of support and others maybe not so much. Find a group like a local Tea Party or Americans for Prosperity and you can get involved to whatever degree you’d like to. If you don’t have time to devote, make a donation.
Bottom line...it shouldn’t be too hard to find a group and a level of participation that suits you. ANYTHING you can do is better than sitting back doing nothing and bitching about the result.
Oh, and don’t forget to support THIS site.
The tea party was not invited to the race by the party infrastructure in 2012. Presidential races are top down. This one in particular was non inclusive. Despite that, tea party people were busy volunteering, working, calling, going door to door and more. Our side had an abundance of volunteers this cycle.
Also, the senate races, which were a focus of the base going back into early 2012, seemed to suffer from listless, uninspiring campaigns. Not sure if the tea party Could have changed that because we don’t write campaign strategy nor place commercials. In 2010, ads mirrored the tea party message, in 2012, ads got bland and uninspiring. Seems to me the professionals took over because they ‘know better’. I imagine after three and a half years of activism...many people are resting up this week bewildered at how poorly this cycle went for us, especially after a clean sweep two short years ago.
The "Tea Party" has no official national spokesman, no national leadership, no official nationally coordinated agenda. Thus the Tea Party in one community can be entirely different than the Tea Party in the next. It all depends on what the local members think the Tea Party is and what it should be doing.
In some states, like Virginia, there are federations of tea parties that will join together on various common objectives and defined acceptable practices, but that's about it. In other words, the federation can ask a Tea Party group to leave the federation. ..but cannot exert an authority to disband any Tea Party group. I often hear federation leaders describe leading a federation of Tea Parties as similar to "leading a roomful of cats."
Thus, anybody can start a "Tea Party" and say they are the chairperson. There are configurations of Tea Party's out the wazoo and, yes, some of them are total subterfuges. But. . whereas, this circumstance can be problematic. . .it is also one of the the strengths of the Tea Party. . .and for that reason, will be very hard to destroy. It is driven overall by the stirring of the conscience of modern patriots who still subscribe to the immutable principles of our founding documents.
In fact, you may see the name "Tea Party" slip away, in that the media has been successful in branding the Tea Party as a racist organization and the Obama administration, since last year, has been probing ways to destroy the Tea Party groups through IRS harassment. We well can expect that with 4 more years of a more "flexible" Obama. . things will be getting very ugly soon. But never underestimate the patriots, my friends. . .just because you don't see them in the field lined up in neat pretty rows doesn't mean they aren't in the bushes, behind the rock taking a bead and launching a musket ball toward the target. Never despair!
By whatever name you call it, we need a strong organization to take a stand against total takeover of our country by Marxist zealots.
That cannot be done by a splintered group, only a single organized organization. A perfect example of that is the Libertarian party that is comprised of many but is so independent of organized leadership that it has never gone anywhere. I know, for I was a “card carrying” libertarian many yeas ago. I saw the future of the party and left it.
The Tea Party is comprised of many conservatives but does not speak for all members in the same language or ideas.
We need a united party that tries to reinstate a value that our Constitution once guaranteed....FREEDOM.
Now, to the point that is going to make a lot of Freepers go crazy..................religion.
Whether you believe in a God or not, it has no bearing on whether you are a good law abiding citizen or of good moral character. Especially, a bearing upon whether you are a conservative and a patriot. The Constitution gives us the right to believe in any manner we wish....and many, many don’t believe at all.
The reason I bring this up is due to the fact that a new political movement that encompass a specific belief in a higher being as part of their platform plank (and a criteria to join) drives off many non-religious good and moral potential members.
The reason that I make these statements is that the ratio of highly religious to non-religious individuals in this country is changing in favor of the non-religious.
Conservatives and Patriots should be able to believe in any manner they wish but the mandatory requirement to join a new conservative party should be the belief in FREEDOM, both in religious and political beliefs and of what the original Constitution granted.
We are in a situation now that everything America once was is at total peril and we don’t have four more years to stop it. We all need to band together and form a new party that will be the last chance to save our country.
We don’t have much time left but in this day of instant communication via internet, it can be done quickly.
A lot of us are busy cleaning our weapons.
I think the premises of the Tea Party included the following:
1) The United States as it stands today is worthy of preservation.
2) We have representative government within the Union.
3) The government is answerable to the people as a matter of law.
4) Working within the present system will restore traditional liberties and American prosperity.
5) The GOP can be ‘taken back’ and brought to a point of functionality and representing the will of its base.
These premises are probably being reviewed - really hard - by many millions of people who will than decide which if any of these premises are valid and what to do going forward. Does anyone else remember ‘Glasnost’?