"On February 19, 2009,[53] in a broadcast from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CNBC Business News Network editor Rick Santelli loudly criticized the government plan to refinance mortgages as "promoting bad behavior" by "subsidizing losers' mortgages", and raised the possibility of putting together a "Chicago Tea Party in July"."
He took the (recent) Tea Party idea from Karl Denninger’s Market Ticker/TickerForum. It was there, where people talked of mailing tea bags to Congress, BEFORE Rick Santelli’s rant.
I think the Ron Paul people started the Tea Party in 2007.
Santelli’s rant was the catalyst.
I posted these links in an earlier thread:
Article about Santelli rant
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/20/rick-santelli-i-sparked-t_n_731249.html
video of original Santelli rant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or-EKjfVCoA
You are exactly right, as far as pinpointing the precise catalyst that gave birth to the Tea Party.
Rush does make a good point, though, that there was a rebellion brewing even before the official launch of the Tea Party, and that Free Republic was a large part of it.
No other person in the country is able to claim as much credit for starting the modern-day Tea Party as Rick Santelli. His rant on the Chicago floor that day was epic. It was another shot heard ‘round the world, except this time, it was near instant.