HEART & SOUL of OUR Country! I want the Democrats to bring their party back from the edge of insanity as much as I want the Republican Party to RETURN to its Conservative roots. The TEA Party is as I say a MAJORITY group of Americans who recognize the Socialism of those in power at this time and want to END IT!

WE are NOT all Socialists now and in such those Democrats in power at this moment will all be SWEPT away with NEW either D’s or R’s in the next 6 cycles! Americans will take their Country back

I agree, I have been feeling the same way. I went to the first Tea Party in Richmond, VA on last years tax day. I marched on DC on 9/12 and again in Nov. when Michele Baughman called on us. I was sound asleep for years, just voting and trusting our leaders. NO MORE. I am awake, I am involved, I am engaged. I am educating myself on the constitution, the issues and the candidates running for office. I am not supporting the parties, I am giving directly to the candidates. But not just in my state. I now realize how the leaders from other states affect me and my family and so I have taken an interest in supporting the candidates that I think will help move this country back into the correct direction. The Tea Parties are great, I thank GOD for them. Over the year, the numbers have grown even larger. More people are waking up as I did. What the MSM and the left do not get is the Tea Parties are not a ‘political party’, it is a movement made up of mainstream Americans. And the more they trash and try to destroy the movement, the more we grow. And WE THE PEOPLE will not longer pay for them to misrepresent us any longer. I do not need to march any more. It is time to get to work electing the best conservative leaders possible. Time to root out the Rino’s, get rid of the progressives and turn this great country around.

I’ll tell you, I can feel it. There is something in the air. I don’t know what it will lead to, but everyone, and I mean everyone I talk to is pissed off. There are people like Misty all over the country. Some still in the chrysalis. Many emerging every day. Some soon. Others just in time. They are tired of it all. “Stand by targets” as we used to say in the Marines. What an exciting time. There is a feeling of exhilaration heading into combat. Excitement. Fear of the unknown and the belief you will win, no matter what. I feel that now, at long last.

Can you imagine what the poll numbers would read if the question posed was “Do you consider yourself to be a Concerned American?” As opposed to “Do you consider yourself a member of the Tea Party”?

It is time to embrace solidarity, not tea parties.

Can you imagine what the poll numbers would read if the question posed was “Do you consider yourself to be a Concerned American?” As opposed to “Do you consider yourself a member of the Tea Party”?

It is time to embrace solidarity, not tea parties.

It was a very interesting poll with mainy statistics that in my view paint the Tea Party Movement as mostly a very positive thing for the conservative movement. It might not be quite so positive for Republicans but that is because Republicans have a bad habit of straying from fiscal conservatism.

Among other things, the Tea Party Movement, which mostly espouses conservative views, has considerably higher favorability with the American people (58%) then the Republican Party. It seems to me that it provides a second communications vehicle for us to reach people with our ideas that are automatically turned off if those same ideas come out of a Republican mouth. Since memories are short, I think we will have a need to reach independent (less politically aware) voters for years or decades to come and that outreach with our ideas will be an ongoing. I don’t believe the Tea Party’s time has come and gone. On the contrary, I think they are just getting started.

I thought this statistic from Rassmussen was particularly interesting: 96% of the political class view the Tea Party Movement unfavorably. That has got to include a lot (most) of Republican politicians. Maybe they would prefer that there not be a group of grass roots fiscal conservatives ready to hold them to account? You seem to be one of the most hold their feet to the fire types of people I know so I am stunned to find you in that 96%. Have you taken a long look in the mirror lately and wondered if perhaps you were moving to the dark side of the force?

It seems to me that the arguments you have made about labeling ourselves as Tea Partiers could be equally made about labeling ourselves as conservatives or Republicans. Should we eliminate those labels too? I don’t really buy it. I hang all sorts of labels (conservative of several flaveros, libertarian, Republican, Tea Partier, Elks, Episcopalian, American, patriot, Wyomingite) on myself and I am proud of them and with respect to politics they help me to find like minded people who give me political strength.

If anything I want the Tea Party lable to grow and become even more powerful. I want weak-kneed spend-thrift Republic politicans to tremble in fear at the idea of crossing us by straying from the conservative plantation and I want Democrats to crap their pants and roll over into a fetal ball or to at least start acting like Republicans-lite.

I have no p[roblem with your idea that now is the time for action in the political process. Clearly that is where elections are ultimately won or lost. But without the Tea Party also participating in their unique way, Scott Brown would be a forgotten memory, and the Democratss would have us bent over a barrel having their way with us. We shouldn’t forget how much power the Tea Partiers bring to us. There is plenty of room for BOTH political process and political protest. The November election will pass and then there will be a two-year period where the Tea Partiers are holding Obama and the Democrats feet to the fire and advancing conservative interest.

What are you doing? You are feeding the narrative you are apparently afraid of. “We have made it easy for politicians and others who disagree with us to dismiss us” If you believe the tea party has been dismissed because it is called a “tea party” you are totally off base. First of all it has been to a great benefit that politicians and others have maligned the tea party. It has exposed them for who they are. They have lied about and outright name called everyday Americans for all to see. They have exposed the bias and outright slander the media has practiced for years. But instead of them doing it to a Republican administration, they have done it to American people. They no longer have ANY credibility. This is a gift the Tea Party has given to the American people that can’t be underestimated. Does this have anything to do with CNN?

Why?

– No move from anger to action
It’s easy to complain and it’s easy to write on the internet. The tea-partiers made a big step in getting people to gather, march, and meet. But turning that initial energy into coordinated action requires people to stick through the initial excitement into the hard slog. That is very, very difficult. Some will stay active, but most will not.

– Splinter
Coordinated action is needed to be effective in a broader movement. But the type of person who is most likely to be a tea party supporter is also a person who is definately not one of the sheep. They think their own thoughts and follow their own direction. Thus, the activists who do get down to work are liable to splinter.

– No well-stated vision
Anti-Obama gets the ball rolling, but a simple alternative platform must be phrased as “What we will do.” not just a statement of “We’re not them”.

– Disdain and opposition from those in power.
The Republican leadership wants the tea-party passion and money, but that’s all. They will not leave quietly. They will fight the tea-party activists (stab them in the back more likely) at every opportunity.

– Wasting time and effort on unproductive issues.
This is huge everywhere in the blogosphere, and seems to infect the tea-party people a bit as well. Simple stated: Only put work into stuff that helps elect your candidate. Everything else is a distraction.

I see all these challenges and I just figure that nothing much will come of the tea parties in 2 years.

is exactly the right name in this time of seige, from the Socialist. We must not let the Democrats, propaganda destroy us. To often in the past, people have been scared out their wits by these radicals and too often, so called supporters have caved. We have awakened to the reality that if we fail to take action, our Country as we know will not survive. The Tea party’s success is scaring the hell out of the Democrat party. The notion that Democrats and other than Conservative and Republicans are the majority of the Tea party movement is ludcrious. The will of the people is paramount and shall not be taken away by name calling and false labels

Also from Rasmussen:

More noticeably, 96% of the Political Class regard the Tea Party movement unfavorably, while 58% of Mainstream voters have a favorable opinion of the movement.

For some reason, the political class doesn’t like the Tea Party movement. But rank-and-file voters have a favorable opinion. Rank-and-file voters decide who runs this country.

More from Rasmussen:

Twenty-four percent (24%) of U.S. voters now say they consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s an eight-point increase from 16% a month ago.

Perhaps the time for PROTESTING is fading, but the time for Tea Parties is not. The Tea Party movement gives the average guy/gal a voice. The average guy is more concerned about the future of this country and less concerned about “branding” or what people at CNN think.

Erick:

“But the branding has also keeps people involved in the protests and movement out of the process. It allows self-identified leaders to pretend to lead. It breeds factionalism…”

This statement is confusing, it seems a bit condescending, and I don’t know if the bulk of the evidence supports it.

Please note: I don’t want to come across as a contrarian.

Erick, I greatly appreciate what you’ve accomplished with your efforts, and I thank you for introducing me to great candidates like Nikki Haley on this blog. But I don’t think that “asking activists on the street will leave with you” will yield a net benefit.

I know that the snobs at CNN and MSNBC and NBC and CBS etc, etc want to create the impression that the Tea Party is “descending into a self-parody of infighting, money making, claims of national leadership, protests, unions, federations, amalgamations, etc,” but that’s not what I see when I look at the Tea Party. And that’s not what 58% of Mainstream voters see either.

Moreover, if conservatives are going to take over the GOP and change the direction of the Republican Party, we’re going to have to be ready for some unsightly conflict (or infighting, if that’s what we want to call it).

Conservatives comprise about 40% of the electorate, but most of those people aren’t particularly beautiful, sophisticated or erudite. Let’s encourage them to speak their minds and show their faces anyway.

obvious erroneous % numbers come from. I don’t believe for one moment that these numbers are factual. For those who are suggesting that we capituate and cave into the propagandists, I say that is exactly the wrong thing to do. I remember in the late 50′s and 60′s, war, and rights protest were prevalent throughout the US. No matter what was said to them by others, they continued their protest and even today. This Tea Party movement will not be stopped until we have our Country back!

we are now seeing some candidates running as “Tea Party Democrats”.

Not so sure what a Tea Party Democrat is but if the title gets them elected then they sure played the game well.

Also, there are a ton of Conservative voters who would never go out and protest anything. They don’t hold signs and march, even if they were in agreement. In their minds, It puts them in the same barrel with crazy liberal protesters. But what they will do is donate, they will advocate, they will teach their kids, they will go to a town halls and they will stand in line and vote. The tea party protesters might actually be inadvertantly turning off thousands of people who are actually perfectly alligned with them.

we are now seeing some candidates running as “Tea Party Democrats”.

Not so sure what a Tea Party Democrat is but if the title gets them elected then they sure played the game well.

Also, there are a ton of Conservative voters who would never go out and protest anything. They don’t hold signs and march, even if they were in agreement. In their minds, It puts them in the same barrel with crazy liberal protesters. But what they will do is donate, they will advocate, they will teach their kids, they will go to a town halls and they will stand in line and vote. The tea party protesters might actually be inadvertantly turning off thousands of people who are actually perfectly alligned with them.

(CNN) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer admitted Tuesday that the protests and rallies by Tea Party activists across the country are having an impact on lawmakers’ decisions about running for another term.

“Do I think that negative atmosphere that’s been created by the Tea Party and by others certainly goes into the thinking of Members? I think it does. I think you honestly have to point out that it does,” Hoyer told reporters at his weekly pen and pad session in the Capitol.

(CNN) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer admitted Tuesday that the protests and rallies by Tea Party activists across the country are having an impact on lawmakers’ decisions about running for another term.

“Do I think that negative atmosphere that’s been created by the Tea Party and by others certainly goes into the thinking of Members? I think it does. I think you honestly have to point out that it does,” Hoyer told reporters at his weekly pen and pad session in the Capitol.

But imagine if the CNN news report instead had been something along these lines:

(CNN) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer admitted Tuesday that the fact that Michael Steele has announced that the Repblican Party has, in one year’s time, gone from half-strenght to full-strength at the grass roots level, having filled up every vacant precinct committeeman slot across the country, overwhelmingly from the “tea party” ranks, is having an impact on lawmakers’ decisions about running for another term.

“Do I think that reinvigoration of the Republican Party at the grass roots level in every precinct in America, that’s been created by the Tea Party and by others certainly goes into the thinking of Members? I think it does. I think you honestly have to point out that it does,” Hoyer told reporters at his weekly pen and pad session in the Capitol.

—————

I spoofed this kind of thing back in February here:

http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2010/02/12/michael-steeles-urgent-memo-to-the-gop-state-chairmen/

Thank you.
ColdWarrior
Conservatives of the U.S., UNITE! Become Republican precinct committeemen and CHANGE the Party and the world! NOW!

Sounds like a straw man argument to me. Who is out there advocating that the only thing to do is protest ala Tea Parties and go home?

Tea Parties are a conduit to bring people out of the wood work and galvanize like minded people. Tea parties should continue, not end. They are part of the process and supply line to grow the conservative base. Tea parties are a critical beginning to supply and reinforce recruits so they continue to take additional action that we really need.

As more people come out to the parties they will want to get involved if given more information on how they can take additional action.

Think of it as a continuous process of developing real effective activists, not a discrete finite group that needs to advance and abandon the effective recruitment function tea parties have. There will be some division of labor specialists that keep the parties going getting new recruits, and then there will be others that address the additional actions such as Cold Warrior’s precint project to hit 2nd, 3rd, 4th gear as they progress with taking additional action.

As far as abandoning the tea party label, it shows weakness if the left wing thinks they won by marginalizing the label. Alinsky’s tactics. Ridicule, teabaggers etc… The left is good at phony labels as they soiled the label “liberal” and now put on a new diaper called “progressive” while continuing to soil themselves.

and still does. He wasn’t advocating protests with people chanting slogans and carrying signs. He was talking about physical action just as those first Patriots did back in 1773. It will take physical PEACEFUL actions to get politicians to see their game is over with the American people. In his famous rant he suggested throwing “derivative securities” into Lake Michigan last July when the Tea Party movement was just getting going.

And Erick, while you can call it a “leaderless movement”, I prefer what Rick Santelli once said, “The Tea Party needs no leader, just passionate citizens and a ballot box”!

I Was just reading about some of these people showing up at the tea partys.Just kiddin.Look Eric, I’ve been waiting for this m ovement for 20 years,and you throw cold water on it just when we’re getting reved up.We are all rowing our boats the same direction,so the only thing i have to say is ,SHUT UP AND ROW!!!!!WE ARE WINNING!

Except about the shut up and row part.

of a whole bunch of people on this thread.

Those of you piling on Erick might do well to go back and read *all* of his words, not just the one’s that yank your visceral response chain. Which portion of

“Again, show up if you want. Go protest. It is healthy for us to have our voices heard”

is written in unintelligible Klingon escapes me. Nor, as far as I can tell, is the money quote which follows:

“You must move beyond the protest and get into the process”.

Come on, folks. We’re conservatives. We’re the ones that are supposed to be able to use our cognitive reasoning abilities. It’s the left that’s supposed to have illogical, visceral reactions to everything they read and hear.

We’re supposed to be smarter than that.

Erick,

I heard you on the radio (internet) at work, today. I read your post.

Yes, we need to start pushing candidates,
Yes we need to get involved at the local, state, and national level.
Yes, there comes a time to put down the signs of protest, and pick up the signs for an election.

But I believe you *should* have gone to a Tea Party event, rallied the troops, and made your statement *then and there.* You could have reached the multitudes of Tea Party folk, not just the faithful of RS.

I tend to agree with the sentiment that you have taken the wind out of some sails.

To be blunt, your timing sucked, IMHO.

and was surprised by the response to it myself. I understood the thread of your post as a call to further action and not an indictment of the movement itself. That post sort of clarified something that I had been thinking as well, that being involved in the Tea Party movement and “protesting” has given a lot of us the false sense of security that we are doing something – that we are actually involved in the process of fixing what we all know is not right. By protesting in and of itself, the movement is not in the fix it stage, it is trapped in the laying grievances stage. I believe the movement up to this point has succeeded far beyond what any of us would have imagined a year ago when Rick Santelli denounced the administration’s mortgage bailout plan and called for a popular revolt against the ever increasing power of the federal government. It has allowed a vast slice of the public to let the establishment know that we are not at all happy with what they are doing, but I agree with Erick that it’s past time for it to move beyond that phase into true activism. It is what many of us here at Red State have already been doing by getting involved in the process of local politics, supporting good conservative candidates, and letting our elected representatives know that we are watching and will hold them to account for their actions in November and beyond. The problem with the Tea Party movement is not the movement itself, it’s that by continuing to identify as Tea Party activists above being concerned Americans, the movement provides the the MSM and the establishment pols with a convenient whipping boy that is easier to marginalize, denigrate and dismiss.

but what does Erick think tea party people do when they are not protesting? I know m any tea party people that work 10 hours a day, and then go hom e to work another 5 or 6 hours doing exactly what Erick suggests. They have spent hundreds and even thousands of dollars to support conservatives. They give their time like I’ve never seen before. And then we have to read that Erick does’t think that what we are doing is helpful and should not call ourselves tea partyers anymore. Sorry, the press will be disappointed because we are not going anywhere.We will fight to the very end no m atter what they call us or who is on our side. I was just hoping that Erick would see that we have come to far to turn back now.

The TEA Party people NEED those protests like alcoholics need AA Meetings, it is the sense of community and fellowship, like minded people deciding what they can do in their communities. It is true that NOT everyone can become a Committeeperson but is it TRUE that EVERYONE can knock on doors and make phone calls and GATHER together in a moment for INSPIRATION, quite like Church

I get why the majority who are coming here are doing so with “anger” it is because they feel like you are raining on their Church services and ruining their best clothes. If you have ever been to one of the protests you would know that they make the “average” person FEEL STRONGER because there is STRENGTH in numbers and they don’t feel alone or “silenced”.

So for those reasons they are a GREAT thing but for the body politic those same people have got to get the Congressional and if there is one a Senatorial candidate who is Conservative and HELP THEM GO TO DC!