[quote=pri_dk]Politics is, by definition, about leadership.[/quote]
Funny, I thought, at least in this country politics was supposed to be about the will of the people. Guess that just shows how naive I am.
[quote=pri_dk]The Tea Party calls out for new leadership in this country, but apparently none of them are willing to stand up as leaders within their own organization.
snip…
And if this “party” has no leaders, then it has no political credibility.[/quote]
Well, riddle me this batman… Who the heck are the tea party, and what makes you think they have any credibility?
I’m no expert on the Tea Party, (nor would I categorize myself as a supporter) but my take runs something like this.
The Tea Party started as grass roots thing. It’s agenda was pretty undefined, with lots of different people all with their own idea of what it was about.
As it started to gain momentum, that’s when stuff got weird. Two things that happened specifically were:
1) Established politicians (think Sarah Palin if that description isn’t too much of a stretch) clambered to get on board and claim they were in charge.
2) People with vested interest in preserving the status quo immediately started to say, “The Tea Party is in favor of…[insert something bad here]” when in fact there was little support in the Tea Party for such an idea. But this was easy to do. All you had to do was take a video camera to the rallies and find the kookiest person there and interview them. (See brian’s youtube video for an example) The fact that many people at tea party rallies would be horrified by the opinions of those in the videos, well that didn’t seem to matter.
Moving to the present day, it seems to me the tea party doesn’t really even exist any more. (If it ever did) Sure their are some groups, like this Southwest Riverside County Citizen’s in Action who go around claiming they are the Tea Party, or more precisely, they are going to reclaim the party from those that have taken it over. But, unless I’m mistaken, there is no national Tea Party headquarters. (Not like there is a national Democrats Party, or Republican Party) As far as I know, there are no Tea Party candidates in congress or the senate, nor in any governor’s offices. I don’t believe there’s even a Tea Party ballot for the san diego primaries.
To me, the friends I knew who attended early Tea Party rallies were not kooks, but just a bunch of people who wanted change. People who were tired of the special interests groups buying off our government. Tired of handouts to big banks and other way too wealthy people sucking at the govt. teet. But that’s been shut down. They no longer attend Tea Party rallies or support much to do with “The Tea Party”.
Which brings me to the question I really want to ask. How come the Tea Party movement fell apart so quickly? Who were the ones who so quickly smeared the people attending Tea Party rallies so that everyone would consider them kooks? What was their agenda? And lastly, why were they so afraid of the Tea Party?
From what I see here, I think part of the answer can be found in this post, and in some of the other responses. I suppose some of you consider the smack down of a voice that questions the established dem/rep two party system a win. I have my doubts about that though.
