RSSParty Day
Tom Bowler | April 15, 2009
On a day in which Taxpayer Tea Parties will be celebrated in cities across the nation, the Wall Street Journal features a column by Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit. Instapundit,one of the highest traffic weblogs on the net, has been monitoring the growth of the tea-party movement. In today’s Journal Column Mr. Reynolds discusses the origins of the Taxpayer Tea Parties and what we can expect from them down the road.
‘The movement grew so fast that some bloggers at the Playboy Web site
– apparently unaware that we’ve entered the 21st century — suggested
that some secret organization must be behind all of this. But, in fact,
today’s technology means you don’t need an organization, secret or
otherwise, to get organized. After considerable ridicule, the claim was
withdrawn, but that hasn’t stopped other media outlets from echoing it.
There’s good news and bad news in this phenomenon for establishment
politicians. The good news for Republicans is that, while the
Republican Party flounders in its response to the Obama presidency and
its programs, millions of Americans are getting organized on their own.
The bad news is that those Americans, despite their opposition to
President Obama’s policies, aren’t especially friendly to the GOP. When
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele asked to speak at
the Chicago tea party, his request was politely refused by the
organizers: “With regards to stage time, we respectfully must inform
Chairman Steele that RNC officials are welcome to participate in the
rally itself, but we prefer to limit stage time to those who are not
elected officials, both in Government as well as political parties.
This is an opportunity for Americans to speak, and elected officials to
listen, not the other way around.”
Likewise, I spoke to an organizer for the Knoxville tea party who
said that no “professional politicians” were going to be allowed to
speak, and he made a big point of saying that the protest wasn’t an
anti-Obama protest, it was an anti-establishment protest. I’ve heard
similar things from tea-party organizers in other cities, too. Though
critics will probably try to write the tea parties off as partisan
publicity stunts, they’re really a post-partisan expression of outrage.
rules, and organizers of each protest are doing things the way they
want.’
Mr. Reynolds believes these are not flash in the pan demonstrations, and that the tea-party movement will impact the 2010 and 2012
elections.
What’s most striking about the tea-party movement is that most of
the organizers haven’t ever organized, or even participated, in a
protest rally before. General disgust has drawn a lot of people off the
sidelines and into the political arena, and they are already planning
for political action after today.
Cincinnati organizer Mike Wilson, a novice organizer who drew 5,000
people to a rally on March 15, is now planning to create a political
action committee and a permanent political organization to press for
lower taxes and reduced spending. Tucson tea party organizer Robert
Mayer told me that his organization will focus on city council
elections in the fall as its next priority. And there’s lots of
Internet chatter about ways of taking things further after today’s
protests.
This would not appear to bode well for the Democrats. It may not help the Republican party either, but according to Reynolds, it could signal the rise of a third party. The Libertarians? Perhaps. But if capital-L Libertarians hope to take advantage of the opportunity this may present, they will need to relax their commitment to ideological purity and move a little bit toward the center. And that would be a good thing.
Contributor's website: http://www.libertarianleanings.com
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