Happy Birthday to the Tea Party

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It was exactly one year ago yesterday - February 27th - that the first 'organized' round of tea parties took place across America. 

Last week, RNC Chairman Michael Steele sat down with a few dozen tea party activists and held a 4-hour long "summit" to hear the grievances of tea party supporters.

That event in itself should speak volumes about the power of this movement.  A movement born from citizen activism just one-year ago held court with a national party chair for 4-hours, because the voices of the people in this movement proved so powerful that they could not be ignored.

Both political parties are paying attention.

 

The San Francisco Chronicle (not exactly known as a bastion of right-wing political propaganda) published an article on January 19th of this year - yes exactly one year ago after Rick Santelli's historic 'tea party' rant on CNBC - that included a mea culpa from none other than liberal San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsom, calling for Democrats to take the tea party movement seriously:

Regardless of the outcome ... this should be a gigantic wake-up call to the Democratic Party - that we're not connecting with the needs, the aspirations and the desires of real people right now," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

"We better get our act together - and quickly," Newsom said. Voters "are so angry. They don't feel that we're paying attention to their needs, in terms of their jobs, and what's going on at the grassroots, in their neighborhoods."

And we must remember, it was that famous rant by CNBC's Rick Santelli that inspired those first rounds of organized tea parties.  Millions of Americans have now heard and seen the inspirational video of Santelli, on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, speaking plainly and forcefully for free market principles that reward hard work and success, and not government-mandated redistribution of wealth.

If you haven't seen it, here it is.




We are looking forward to another exciting year with our firedns in the Tea Party Movement.

Hattip: Tea Party Express