posted on Jul, 16 2010 @ 02:54 AM
I never gave much credence to the Tea Party movement. To me they always seemed like a new skin for the GOP. They needed a new suit-of-arms after the
damage done by the Bush Administration and the crushing defeat in the 08 elections. The Tea Party seemed to be the perfect grass-roots "back to the
basics" style of campaigning they needed. I really didn't pay much attention to them as a separate identity from the Republicans, until recently at
least. Now I'm not so sure if they are synonymous, in fact, I think that the Tea Party, could become a real first in the America: It could become an
actual viable third party...
Now, let it be known, I'm not endorsing the Tea Party or any political ideology. This isn't about what they stand for or what their tactics are.
This is about what the movement could escalate into. I began to see the Tea Party differently as recently as only last week. A Washington Post
article, written by Staff Writer Sandya Somashekar was discussing the odd silence of the Tea Party Movement on the ruling by a Federal Judge that the
1996 law forbidding the recognition of gay-marriages by the Federal Government. While Republican slanted outlets were crying as though somebody stole
their child out of a mall, the Tea Party didn't make a peep. Not a statement, not a catchy soundbite, not a press release -- nothing.
Ms. Somashekar went to go interviewed various chapter leaders of the Tea Party, and she began to receive similar talking points that pointed to a
divergence of opinion between the GOP and the TP.
"I do think it's a state's right," said Phillip Dennis, Texas state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots. The group does not take a
position on social issues, he said, but personally, "I believe that if the people in Massachusetts want gay people to get married, then they should
allow it, just as people in Utah do not support abortion. They should have the right to vote against that."
Washington Post, Sandya Somashekar. 2010. Washington
Post
Now I don't really trust polls too much. I don't feel they give a good view of a population. CBS's poll had a rather broadly collected data set,
and they found that 18% of the country currently considered themselves as a Tea Party member. That's a pretty good number for only having been
established for a little over a years time. Prying deeper there does in fact appear to be some variety within the group. Though mostly white, the
group was split mostly down the middle when it came to gender, and 4 in 10 of those polled identified themselves as liberal-leaning. The drive of the
people involved is rather astonishing as well. at the 9/12 rally, FreedomWorks estimated that roughly 450,000 people attended the protest at
Washington D.C.
The movement appears to have taken hold in the hearts of Libertarians, independents and generally anybody who feels disenfranchised through government
action and inaction. It seems to hold the old-guard philosophies of the GOP pre-Reagan with the economic sensibilities of the Libertarian "party."
This "movement" could end up not dwindling or plateauing like most media analysts would like to say. If the numbers are correct, if the movement
turns into a viable third party, it would become a major upset for the political spectrum in the United States. Everything that has become status quo
in Washington bureaucracy would be shaken and trust into a new era of American politics.