Tea Party Is in a Leadership Conundrum

I have to say that I spoke at the 4-15-2009 Tea Party in Charlottesville Virginia, the home of Thomas Jefferson. You could almost see Monticello from where we spoke. I imagined TJs ghost looking down on his home smiling-for the most part.

Finally people were waking up. As I looked out into the crowd I saw many Gadsden flags and "End the Fed" signs. But then one thing struck me...What was that on the radio? Rush Limbaugh? It was odd and disappointing.

So the TEA party people are gathering for a convention in Nashville next month. If it's filled with people who think Sarah Palin is a proper presidential candidate...well, then, an important opportunity to further human freedom will have been put in jeopardy.

-Nick



(Jan. 6) -- In his latest New York Times column, conservative pundit David Brooks makes the case that the new decade will be "The Tea Party Teens," as that movement's radical-populist "brigades" now claim "all the intensity" that President Barack Obama's supporters displayed in propelling him to the White House.

Brooks cites a recent poll showing that independent voters approve of the Tea Party movement more than both major parties and says that what's holding it back from becoming an even bigger force is its "amateurish" operations and lack of a true leader. Underscoring his latter point was the appearance, on the same day of his column, of a much-blogged-about Washington Independent scoop showing photographic evidence of TeaParty.org founder Dale Robertson holding a sign saying: "Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = Niggar."

For now, in the absence of a clear, single standard bearer, the Tea Party movement remains aligned, if tenuously, with several figures in the Republican Party. "It's a very interesting dance right now watching the courtship between the movement and GOP candidates and officeholders," former George W. Bush adviser Mark McKinnon writes in The Daily Beast.