WaPo: Tea party's wide publicity belies its limited scope

[spanone]

is this the enthusiasm gap the media has been yapping about?

+++++++++++++++++++++++

In an unruly, unpredictable and chaotic election year, no group has asserted its presence and demanded to be heard more forcefully than the tea party. The grass-roots movement that was spawned with a rant has gone on to upend the existing political order, reshaping the debate in Washington, defeating a number of prominent lawmakers and elevating a fresh cast of conservative stars.

But a new Washington Post canvass of hundreds of local tea party groups reveals a different sort of organization, one that is not so much a movement as a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process.

The results come from a months-long effort by The Post to contact every tea party group in the nation, an unprecedented attempt to understand the network of individuals and organizations at the heart of the nascent movement.

Seventy percent of the grass-roots groups said they have not participated in any political campaigning this year. As a whole, they have no official candidate slates, have not rallied behind any particular national leader, have little money on hand, and remain ambivalent about their goals and the political process in general.

"We're not wanting to be a third party," said Matt Ney, 55, the owner of a pilates studio and a founder of the Pearland Tea Party Patriots in Pearland, Tex. "We're not wanting to endorse individual candidates ever. What we're trying to do is be activists by pushing a conservative idea."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/23/AR2010102304000_pf.html

[spanone]

1. ?

[LostInAnomie]

2. No kidding.

They are pure astroturf. Ginned up idiots clamoring to whatever their masters tell them.

[applegrove]

3. I don't think they are listening to their masters. I think the teapartiers are people who have

escaped the GOP. Why would the GOP have wanted to loose a senatorial election in Delaware? Now, with the tea party's O'Donnell, they will.

[starroute]

4. They're basically apolitical

On the whole, they have no interest in actual politics or desire to participate. Their hatred of government in general is matched by their hatred of the political process, which they often seem to see as somehow tainted.

The only reason they can pass for a movement of any kind -- let along a political movement -- is that the Dick Armeys and Koch Brothers of this world have marshaled them behind an elite right-wing pro-capitalist agenda. But left to their own devices, they quickly lapse back into the state of mild, pervasive cultural discontent where they started.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. These sound like the "both parties suck, so I'm not gonna vote" people.

More lost votes for Repugs, than anything.