Time for Tea?

A lot of people have asked about the Tea Party - who are they, what do they believe, and do they see themselves as a third political party?  Tonight I will answer those questions.


The Tea Party movement is a loosely associated network of grassroots organizations across the country.  It has no leader and does not even have a centralized leadership structure.  There are several influential people in the Tea Party movement that often appear at their local rallies, including Rep. Dick Armey, Rep. Ron Paul, Sen. Jim DeMint, Gov. Sarah Palin, and Rep. Michelle Bachman, among others.  The Tea Party is a movement bound together by a shared ideology, not a party-like structure.


The Tea Party movement is primarily based around fiscal conservatism and the desire for a smaller Federal Government.  The big coming out for the Tea Party was on April 15th 2009, Tax Day, in protest of high taxes and Federal Government deficits.  The name is in reference to the Boston Tea Party rally that protested the oppressive rule of England on its American colonies (high taxes, no representation, etc).  Tea Party identifiers are critical of past Democratic and Republican excesses in government, although they see the past fiscal woes of Republicans to be far less severe than that of the Democrats.  While Tea Party members may often be foreign policy or social conservatives, that is not the focus of the movement.  Depending on which poll you check, around 25% to 35% of Americans identify themselves with the Tea Party movement and around 60% do not.  This is an especially high number for an interest group, which the Tea Party essentially is, and even more impressive considering the fact that they have gotten less than positive press coverage since their inception.  Several polls show about equal favorable-unfavorable ratings for the Tea Party.  One poll finds that 48% of voters say they are closer in beliefs to the Tea Party and 44% of voters say they are closer in beliefs to President Obama (Rasmussen), and another poll shows that Tea Party backers are demographically representative of the American population at large (Gallup).  The verdict is that this is not just some fringe group, and that the Tea Party has considerable influence.


But, what power does the Tea Party have and will they start a third party?  Polls show that the Tea Party would basically split the Republicans in two if they were to become a national third party, and thereby guarantee Democrat victories.  Tea Party backers know this and do not desire to be a third party.  The goal of the Tea Party movement is to reform the Republican party from within.  That is their true power.  They have the ability to influence which Republicans get nominated and elected and which policies Republicans in Washington will adopt.  They can even drive more moderate Republicans to the right, as was evidenced in the case of John McCain this year.  They are very motivated voters who will definitely show up to the polls.  This also makes them influential in Midterm Election years like 2010 where turnout is lower than in Presidential years like 2008.