about Sarah palin. The people that are following her have the same messianic view of her as the folk who still worship at the Obama alter. Sorry folks, but not that impressed with her. Haystack is right on the money about all of this Tea Party stuff. I was at one on April 15th and wondered what would happen to it. I fear it has been hijacked. I do hope I am wrong.

We have to have all the fire power we can to stop obama, his party of N0-N0-ACOUNTIBILITY democrats and his lying machine the next 9 months.

Give it a chance. On one hand people around the country, and here also, complain the “tea party” people cannot wield enough influence because they are disorganized. But, if they try to organize, they are accused of being the “same old, same old.”

The biggest thing that will come out of this will be the sense that they are not alone, that they can impact, that they can organize. Hopefully, your caution will not be lost on them. That is the great thing about starting from scratch, you can correct things long before they become institutionalized .

The left will take advantage of the Tea Party movement by addressing the prospects of a third party over and over again until we believe it to be so. They will use that weakness to strengthen themselves., We must not let that happen. They cannot be the ones to determine the outcome by defining the conversation.
We set the tone and the conversation.

the various events on C-Span, it doesn’t look as if the speakers are speaking of a National Movement at this moment. The message seems to be get organized and get motivated and get involved at the precinct, county and state level and vett the campaigns and people running for the local and state offices. This is a grassroots movement to find people who have beliefs and values which you agree and work to get that person elected. Don’t pay attention to D or R by their names, what is in their character by the way the carry themselves and answer your questions. Get to know them and then help spread the information to like minded people who will get out the vote!

I’m curious as to who the tea party(ies) would have endorsed in the last election, OTHER than Sarah Palin. Love Sarah, but she carried baggage, namely McCain. After reading about how the handlers around the campaign treated her I don’t think she would’ve been very influentual in his adminisrtration and she would’ve been relegated to some corner, only to be brought out when conservative votes were needed.. I voted Fred, but he’d already dropped out, so it was a principle thing w/me, Could’ve written in Alan Keyes and still slept well.

….’birthers’, jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Glenn Beck. We don’t want any albatrosses here. We just spent 40 years caving to the progressives so we wouldn’t be called ‘racists’ and the last decade singing the praises of global warming so the kiddies wouldn’t think we were ‘hurting the environment’. We dare not offend anyone. We want to be a big tent party so we can put on a circus like the Democrats. We can stand a little Tea Party ranting but at the end of the day just go in and pull the “R” lever so John McCain can put the kabosh on freedom of speech again..

We can’t heard the Republicans with the moderates and the conservatives. The Tea Parties started out not being any party, but, Republicans, Democrats and Independents. How can anyone possibly heard this group into support for any one party? It’s been said that the goals more closely align with the Republican party, but, who decided that, what is the overwhelming beliefs, what principles do they stand on, if any? Isn’t it quite well known that “in the absence of leadership, someone will rise to the top, and try to take over that leadership position?” Who will that be, if anyone, or will it be a big fight to gain that voice? Glenn Beck has been wining and crying over both parties. Palin has now endorsed McCain and Rand Paul, who are on opposite sides, as to national defense at least. The Ron Paul, Campaign for Liberty, now calls itself Conservatives, even though they still have a Libertarian platform. They are a very big part of the Tea Parties. How will anyone heard these cats, so to speak? I agree with Haystack, this is the making for a third party movement. Fiscally conservative, socially in the middle, and a mediocre national security position. After all, won’t many believe we can’t afford to pay for any wars with the current economic situation we are in? I’ll give Palin a chance to push the movement to the right, but, I’m not holding my breath.

beyond the local level. There need to be a couple of people in each location to do the basic organizational stuff for rallies, etc. If they can get the people to show up en masse, they’ve done what they need to do. Any organizing over/above this goes too far and takes it beyond a grass roots effort.

What I fear will happen is that the wrong players will get involved with a power trip, and they’ll push for a third party – either local or national. This will turn me off permanently to this thing.

What I expect will happen, frankly, is that 99% of the DC pols will (as they have thus far) completely ignore the whole tea party thing and it will gradually erode away. As I predicted before the Dems started with healthcare socialization, once the Senators and Congresspeople returned to DC, they forgot they have constituents and they went back to business as usual.

Cynical? You bet. But the Senate/House votes on health care tell me that they didn’t hear a damned thing in those town hall meetings during the summer recess and the tea party rallies were largely for naught. Where the tea party folks can really make a difference is to organize in the manner that our friend ColdWarrior is pushing – local activism within the GOP.

After 5 months of indigestion, the first of the tea parties brought hope the Republic could be saved. Been gaining altitude ever since.

and work at the grassroots in both parties to put forward conservatives, this can be an influential movement. Conservatives outnumber the statists in every state of the union. If we can’t remove Pelosi-Reid from power this year, it may not matter. These Bolsheviks have no intention of giving up power just because the livestock are restless.

All tea party protesters I have met are conservatives. They’re republicans who are fed up with liberals and RINOs. If there are Democrats among us, and they truly stand with us, then they need to get honest with themselves and change parties.

I do not support a 3rd party, but I do believe that most tea party protesters would like to see conservative Republicans take over the party and do away with the RINOs.

On the other hand, should a third party – a truly conservative party – REPLACE the Republican party, I’ve got no problem with that at all. The Republicans replaced the Wigs.

Which is really too bad. I have been receiving a ton of e-mails from various groups suing others, having catfights, etc. For many it has turned into a paid business. I am going to be slowly divesting myself from them.

Palin is hurting the Tea Party movement. Sure, she gives it airtime on television, but she herself is embarrassing. Hearing her talk about “divine intervention” is just weird.

seem to be notions pushed forth by the Talking Heads. Having been to only one Party Here in Savannah (the first) I have not heard what the mass may be murmuring now. I do hear it as a question or point of interest being asked by the media. It is usually followed by “who’s the leader?”
I think it is this point of Query that drives both.
Third party and Who’s the leader….

The Movement needs only to be a third party in Primaries.
The Movement needs to force Primaries at every given chance be the incumbent a facade or a bulwark of principals.
The Tea party must assail all candidates to test for erosion. This is what has been lacking in comfortable incumbency. A tidal force strong enough to place fear in a Saxby Chamblis or Johnny Isakson that their foundations will shift under minor fluctuations in principal like Prescription Drug or Amnesty.
No more comfortable incumbency, no more wavering on principal accepted.

cw

WE are identified by issues ,candidates and protests. Every Axelrod ,Rove, Maher and O’Rielly think they get it.They do not. We know what a republic is and the constitutions role in it. We are not angry or frustrated. We will not have a three party system that will create europen style factions. We believe in the system and are merely participating to the fullist.

I concur. “If you build it, they will come.”

then the Tea Partiers will come back into the fold. I do think that this will happen at the local level; however, with the Internet, most of us are leading the way to an entirely new type of politics.

Through reading blogs from people across the country, we are finding out about candidates that we might never have known about in the past. We are able to use our money in races where we can promote people in other states who reflect what we want to see in representatives in Washington.

I really think that this is going to be the politics of the future – we will still need a National party to tie everything together, but they will be more willing to promote candidates who reflect the wishes of the people. This will enable Conservative candidates to flourish, because conservative people are more willing to donate their own money to causes that they believe in.

I, for one, have NEVER donated to a political party; however, in the past year, I have donated money to several INDIVIDUAL candidates in states other than my own. Right now, I am happy with my local representatives, so there isn’t any reason to want change. However, I have sent money to candidates in other races because I liked what they had to say, and wanted to encourage their candidacy.

After all, Scott Brown was able to raise $12 million in less than a week – I don’t think that EITHER political party would be willing to invest that kind of money in any individual race. I think that a lot of that money came from out-of-state donors. I seriously doubt that any Democratic candidate could raise that kind of money – especially from out of state – in such a short amount of time (well, legally, anyway…..).

We can stay in the Republican party, but they are starting to see what kind of candidates are getting the bulk of the donations. The party leaders – if they are paying attention – have to realize by now that they aren’t going to continue to get broad support from voters unless they are willing to promote the candidates that people are comfortable rallying behind.

Change is happening – it’s just going to take a little bit of time to groom people for these positions. If we are willing to get involved at the local level, we can influence that change.

40% of the population is Conservative, 35% of the population are moderates yet Democrats still cream Republicans in registered voters. The reason is that most Conservatives have abandoned the Republican party since it is not reliably Conservative. Republicans draw on Conservative voters, use them to get elected, then make compromises with lobbyists and sell out the values of small frugal limited government, free enterprise, and maximization of individual liberty down the river to subsidies, new agencies, higher taxes, regulation, litigation, and the nanny state supplemented by imposition of religious values, The Tea Party movement can hopefully take over the Republican party, boot out the statistists, boot out the collectivist-fellow travellers, boot out the servants of the monopolies and oligopolies and make the party a true Conservative party.