The Tea Party flexes its muscle

What happened

The fledgling Tea Party movement held its first national convention last week, drawing 1,100 boisterous followers to Nashville for a gathering aimed at transforming the group from an angry protest movement into an organized force in electoral politics. Convention planners announced the formation of a political action committee that would support conservative primary challengers to mainstream Republican candidates, as activists flocked to workshops such as “Electioneering 101,” which gave tips on organizing support for local Tea Party candidates. “The movement is maturing,” said Judson Phillips, whose Tea Party Nation social-networking site sponsored the convention. “The rallies were good for last year. This year we have to change things.”

The three-day event was highlighted by a speech by former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who praised the movement as “the future of politics in America.” Other featured speakers included former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, who suggested that citizens pass an English literacy test as a requirement for voting, and WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, who demanded that President Obama prove he is a U.S. citizen. Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who had introduced Palin, quickly criticized Farah for raising the citizenship issue, calling it “self-indulgent” and a “losing issue.” Members of a rival Tea Party group, which objected that the convention was being held as a for-profit event, protested outside the convention site.

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What the editorials said

The Tea Partiers now confront the same challenge all populist uprisings have faced, said Canada’s National Post. “Crafting policies is far harder than simply venting against the status quo.” The convention helped fire up the true believers, but they still must demonstrate what they’re for, not just what they’re against. That’s a tall order for this “colorful but quarrelsome hodgepodge of fundamentalist Christians, anti-tax activists, anti-immigration cranks, protectionists, and mainstream conservative Republicans.” The movement’s followers clearly are “famished” for alternatives to “the same tired Democratic and Republican agendas,” said the Prescott, Ariz., Daily Courier. Unfortunately, what they got was a lot of “recycled rhetoric.”

All the same, the Tea Party should worry Republicans and Democrats alike, said the Financial Times. If the Republicans fail to bring the Tea Partiers into their coalition, the Tea Party could “split the opposition” and hand President Obama a victory in 2012. But Democrats, who have openly mocked the Tea Partiers as rubes and fools, risk pushing them directly into the Republicans’ arms. “The Democrats would be wise to moderate their scorn and hope the Tea Party runs out of steam. However, for many Democrats, that’s asking a lot.”

What the columnists said

The Democrats must be deeply disappointed by the Tea Party’s official launch, said Rich Lowry in National Review Online. Counting on the Tea Partiers to divide the Republicans, they were rooting for a vile display of “bumptious extremism.” While there were a few embarrassing moments, for the most part Tea Partiers came across as concerned citizens who “want to reconnect the GOP to the people and to its principles.” In fact, the Tea Party does seem to have “jolted the Republican Party from its slumber,” said Matthew Continetti in The Weekly Standard. These activists’ energy could well spell the difference in 2010 and 2012.

The Tea Party already is the Republican Party, said Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com. Based on the Palin keynote address and other speeches, “it’s all the same nationalistic militarism and warmongering, Wall Street–subservient economics, and religion-based policy­making that had defined the GOP forever.” The media seems to find something charming about the whole scene, but “this movement is nothing more than the Republican Party masquerading as a grass-roots phenomenon.”

There’s a lot more to it than that, said Glenn Reynolds in the Washington Examiner. Over and over, I heard delegates to the convention planning to “shake things up” by taking over local Republican and even Democratic organizations. They’re fed up with “corrupt, venal, and out-of-touch” politicians of both parties who squander the taxpayers’ money. As they gain “experience and self-assurance,” Tea Partiers could very well become a potent force that all entrenched politicians should fear.