Is the Tea Party Dead? Hardly...

You may think that, like the Occupy movement, the Tea Party movement has dissolved and blown away. But despite what David Brooks might think or wish, we are alive and well. What Mr. Brooks and so many others who keep ringing the death knell do not see or understand, we have gone “local”.

I do not know how many people on Commentarama Isle who have participated directly in the movement. I am sure many of us have attended at least one rally and some meetings with local groups. I was an original member of TeaParty365.org, the first group to form in New York City in 2009. David Webb, a local radio talk show host and some others staged our first rally in February 28, 2009 in City Hall Park in lower Manhattan with about 300 participants. Sparked by TARP and newly elected Barack Obama's pending $700 billion "stimulus" package and auto bailouts, our burgeoning message was simple - WE, THE TAXPAYING CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY, THINK GOVERNMENT SPENDING IS OUT OF CONTROL AND WE WANT IT TO STOP. There were no other issues more important or urgent. It has been reported that on that day over 750 separate rallies were held around the country.

This was followed quickly by Tax Day Tea Party rallies, July 4th rallies, and an astounding 9/12 Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C. where upwards of over a million people from around the country showed up to voice their frustration and disgust at a government that we felt was spirally out of control.

After the great success at the 2010 mid-term elections (for which the RNC should be considerably more grateful), the Tea Party appeared to fade away. The left-wing pundits and perhaps the RNC began to breathe a sigh of relief that we appeared to lose interest. But these great knowers of all things political, failed to recognize that the only thing that had changed was that we were no longer interested in staging big rallies. Oh, they were great fun, but they did not really advance anything and only fueled the MSM and certain Congressional leadership to mock us mercilessly (and shamelessly). They did not understand that we realized what would advance our cause was...well, you know the saying "All politics is local"? Yeah, we went local. So, gone are the heady days of staging national rallies with funny signs and tri-corn hats. We are now working on the state, county, and local community level in a bottom-up overhaul of the Republican Party to try and move it back to its conservative roots and frankly, to save it from itself.

It has not been without trouble. Unlike other movements, we prided ourselves that we were “leaderless”. Because of that, the movement became quickly co-opted by national figures like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Dick Armey and many local and state politicians all claiming to be the leaders and voices of Tea Party. The problem is that no one consulted the boots on the ground.

In a certain respect, the original two million* who showed up in Washington on September 12, 2009 were naive. We did not WANT leaders and/or leader-politicians, but sadly, no movement can last indefinitely without leadership. On the national level, the Tea Party and affiliated groups – FreedomWorks, Tea Party Patriots, the “Bigs” at Breitbart.com and others - have become mired in infighting, jockeying for national control and time on the national pundit shows. This is to be expected because this is what happens when two or more people aligned in a cause.

As I predicted after the 2010 midterm elections in which we aligned ourselves with the less hostile Republican Party, the Tea Party turned its sites toward (or against) the leadership in the Republican Party and began holding them to their promises. There is now a war brewing with the “establishment” Republicans and the Tea Party. If we are honest with ourselves, Rove has a point. We have helped nominate some real wack-a-doodles as candidates. But in the Tea Party’s defense, we have gotten no help from the RNC. For their part, they have refused to help fund campaigns or throw their considerable financial weight and any media savvy campaign organizer to help guide or groom our candidates. Support that they owe to our "boots on the ground" campaigners made available to them.

So where is the Tea Party heading? We will continue to work locally and let the national guys duke it out among themselves. At a recent meeting of my local group , Gotham Tea Party, we had a speaker from redstate.com Peter List who blogs under the name “unionlaborreport” – who admonished us to communicate and coordinate with other local groups rather than depend on any national groups. Very good advice. But despite all of the calls of our demise, rest assured that we are alive, and well, and meeting in some local pub plotting our next move.

*Well, 500 to 2,000,000 depending on the news source.