The Tea Party definitely scored a significant victory with Senator Cruz’s election in 2012 and scored victories in some statewide primaries. But to me, as the Tea Party gets stronger within the Republican Party in Texas, the prospect of a blue Texas becomes stronger and stronger.
The Tea Party is almost solely grassroots-based; business interests have almost no grassroots organization. The Republican Party has for too long been run on behalf of business interests who favor candidates the grassroots hate; the minute that those candidates begin to flag, only loyal Tea Partiers stand behind them.
The problem with the Tea Party is that it’s been used in a way that scares people into supporting an agenda that’s counter to their own interests.
The Tea Party movement started in late 2008 as a rejection of President George W. Bush’s bailout of the auto industry and Obama’s excessive stimulus spending. It evolved into a movement opposed to ObamaCare, and grassroots efforts were employed to find qualified political candidates who could beat incumbents.
Obamacare notwithstanding, the current president’s progressive instincts have been neutered by the rise of the Tea Party and Luddite conservatism.
I know within my organization, within the grassroots of my organization of the Tea Party movement generally, there’s going to be a big drive for impeaching Obama. I don’t know if that’s the right move… We need to play our cards very carefully and beware of the mouse trap that Obama might be trying to set for us.
I think that’s what activates the Tea Party Movement. What they see is the government interfering with their lives and with the inheritance of their children. Are we going to pass down liberty or deficits? And that’s really what this movement is about.
The Tea Party people are ideologues. They are right, and no one can change their minds. There is no reason for compromise.
The Republican Party would be really smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible.
I don’t think ‘my way or the highway’ works, that mentality. And that’s what the Tea Party has done: drawn a line in the sand. I’m sorry – that doesn’t work in business, that doesn’t work in your family, it certainly doesn’t work in government and our Congress.
The Tea Party is clearing gunk out of the fuel lines of this country. It started with throwing out Democrats, but the Republicans are going to be next. We’re doing what needs to be done for the sake of the country.
A Tea Party tidal wave is coming.
I think what the Tea Party movement is – I’m all for it; they’re out there fighting for our rights, fighting for what our forefathers stood for.
I think the Tea Party has brought enormous strength to the Republican Party and I absolutely support its fiscal responsibility message, yes.
The Tea Party isolated Mitt Romney from mainstream voters, linking him to a rabid ideology that he could not shake as he desperately tried to move to the middle in the closing weeks of the campaign. Lesson: The loudest voices don’t often command the votes needed to win in November.
One thing Republican leaders, regardless of whether they love us or they hate us, have got to understand is there’s no way in hell there will ever be another Republican president without the active engagement of the Tea Party masses and support of the Tea Party masses.
I think others may look at the uniqueness of my candidacy, the fact that I’m an African-American, conservative tea party Republican, and somehow race injects itself into the conversation.
Unlike the Tea Party, who see themselves as the customers of government, people in the Occupy Wall Street movement understand that we are the government. Stated most simply, we are trying to run a 21st-century society on a 13th-century economic operating system. It just doesn’t work.
The similarities are limited but real. They amount to a shared disgust with politics as usual in America. The Tea Party focuses on the federal government; Occupy Wall Street focuses on corporate America and its influence over the government.
Internet companies created the social-media tools that fueled the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street insurgencies, and that have helped political candidates rally grass-roots support.
I’ve long thought that Marco Rubio would make a strong G.O.P. candidate for president. While he was brought into office by surfing on the Tea Party wave, he has proven himself not to be wedded to the frequent lunacy of those folks.
The tax issue is the most powerful issue in American politics going back to the Tea Party.
A lot of what you have seen with third-party groups – like the Tea Party – these folks are conservative, and they are fed up with people in Washington who are not working for them but against them.
The only tactic liberals have is to try to intimidate people into thinking that the Tea Party is racist. The Tea Party is not a racist movement, period! If it were, why would the straw polls keep showing that the black guy is winning? That’s a rhetorical question. Let me state it: The black guy keeps winning.
The tea party wants to empower people with opportunity and the freedom for the individual to pursue success and keep the fruits of their success.
The Tea Party ended up being a shill for corporate America.
You combine the Tea Party along with our support with the Republican base and grassroots, and it makes for a winning combination.
Generations of devoted American history buffs have spent countless hours reading and writing long books about the American Revolution without ever having come across the name of Dr. Thomas Young. Yet it was Young who came up with the idea for the original tea party – the one in Boston Harbor.
The Tea Party is simply a loose description of local activism driven by Americans who want smaller government and more self-reliance. That sounds like what the Founding Fathers had in mind, does it not?
Is Romney a tea party candidate? I’d probably say that he’s the least of the candidates running for president right now that would be considered a tea party candidate.
It requires some intelligent reframing to make people see commonalities that they don’t otherwise see. To me, the Tea Party and the Occupy movement are, in many ways, saying the same thing, but it requires a bit of imagination to get people to see that.
Blame the Tea Party? Geez, no wonder Kerry did so well in an election. If it wasn’t for the Tea Party, they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up; we would have been rated BBB.
If the Tea Party gets its way, there will be less government – which is great for the elites. They don’t need the government.
My biographer said that my parties reminded them of a vicarage tea party, with sex thrown in.
It’s not all Obama’s fault: His plans to rebuild America’s energy infrastructure have been hampered by the recession, and his efforts on global warming have been stymied by Tea Party wackos and weak-kneed Democrats in Congress.
This nation has been through hard times. But those hard times have hardened our resolve. I’m ready to do the difficult work ahead. But I want to do that work with Barack Obama, and not a Tea Party ideologue. We can move America forward, but we can only do it together.
I mean, people who say that the Tea Party isn’t a grassroots movement, I think, are incorrect. I think in some respects, it is a grassroots movement.
The way to lessen the grip of the Tea Party on the electoral process would be to do what a handful have done and have a primary where all voters, members of every party, can vote, and the top two vote-getters then enter a runoff.
I was gone so much in my first marriage. I love the moments when I engage with my youngest daughter now. It’s not my thing to sit on the ground and play tea party, but I’ll do it because it’s a moment that will stick with me forever.
First of all, do I think there’s some racists in the Tea Party? Yeah. I’m an ordained United Methodist pastor; there’s some racists in the Methodist church. I don’t know if there’s a body that does not have some racists in it.
The Tea Party movement is a wide and diverse group. It will hurt the Republican Party if some elements of the Tea Party decide to become third party advocates because it will split the conservative vote.
This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell.
The beauty of the tea party movement is that it is independent and thus a true check and balance of the Republican and Democrat parties. It’s not a pawn of the GOP, thus untouchable in criticism of the Democrats – I view it as an unattached conscience of the Republican party.
I think we have a rawer version of capitalism and a more fragile community and family base than other nations. We are a more individualistic culture. From the Boston Tea Party on, we’ve had too little faith in government.
On the issues the Tea Party cares about, I land right in their bull’s-eye.
The Tea Party has definitely increased political involvement, not only among Tea Party members but among people who oppose the Tea Party members. It’s been a general stimulus.
And my principles go right in line with the Tea Party.
It was widespread that the politics of Tea Party people would be foreign to Ronald Reagan and they would be seen by him as frivolous and uninformed.
I liken myself to a little girl having a tea party at the house all of the time. I actually dress up more in my home than I do walking down the street just because it is so much fun to play dress up.
