During the Bush Administration, MoveOn started an impressive grassroots movement, not only against that President, but also to help drive the Democratic minority (at the time) into what it thought would be a successful position for later elections. Some would argue how much of that later Democratic success could be attributable to them, and other groups like them, but it is hard to say that there was no influence.  Now, during the Obama Administration, there is a similar movement afoot... the "Tea Party Movement".  But does anyone know what that movement is really about?

First of all, there are just way too many Tea Parties. There are semi-national groups like Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party Nation, and the Tea Party Express to name just a few. Then there are smaller regional groups as well, some of which are loosely affiliated with the national groups, and some of which are affiliated with nobody in particular.  Some of them are fairly independent, and even leaning libertarian, while others are closely coupled with GOP Political Action Committees.

Two weeks ago was the Tea Party Nation convention.  It was a national event held in Tennessee that featured $500+ ticket prices, $10,000 speaker fees (if you have runner's legs and can say "You Betcha") and conspiracy theorists.  For a movement that was about individual anger and the common person, it was surprising and somewhat disappointing to see a for-profit event which was inaccessible to the common person.  Sadly, the worst part was the often ignored primetime speaking platform that was offered to Joseph Farah from World Net Daily.  He chose to use his national speaking time to push his often disproved theory that President Obama is not an American Citizen, getting applause the entire time. It also didn't help that Tom Trancedo was there, suggesting that requiring a literacy test prior to voting would have prevented Obama from being elected.

Many smaller scale Tea Party protests have featured fringe folks holding signs and saying some very crazy stuff.  While Democrats may have wanted to showcase them as being an integral part of the movement, their numbers were in fact very small.  The worst part of the Tea Party Nation convention was that those very fringe people were given primetime speaking platforms.  In effect, they owned up to the crazy folks, as long as they were Anti-Obama.  No matter which Tea Party you choose to go to, you can now be associated with the likes of Farah and other conspiracy theorists.

Glenn Reynolds (of Instapundit fame) seemed more hopeful of the movement coming out of Nashville, even as he largely ignored the Farah and Trancedo remarks.  Of course, if you followed the events preceding the convention, Pajamas Media (who Reynolds now blogs for) was not invited, then was, then wasn't, then finally was.  In fact, Pajamas Media rarely has anything bad to say about the movement, so much so that I question their independence.  In a recent post, Reynolds had this say about a Tea Party Candidate running against Harry Reid:

RETTY SURE THIS IS A BAD IDEA: Tea Party to run 3d party candidate against Harry Reid. I think it's smarter for Tea Party activists to target primary races, rather than starting their own party as seems to be happening in Nevada. Two words: "Ross Perot." Two more: "Ralph Nader."

There is also talk of "Tea Party" activists attempting to start at the ground level in GOP strong holds and get elected into the party as precinct leaders in order to change the platform.  It would seem that there is a basic fight going on... one between the "I'm a Conservative, Not a Republican" crowd to remake the GOP, the Libertarians who are looking for a larger audience, and the Republicans (like Palin) who are trying to use the Tea Parties to bring back the old GOP.  It's important not to ignore the libertarians, as the number of people who fit the "small-l" libertarian mold is probably larger than people realize.

The problem is, mostly people aren't all that politically active, and so they really only know two old parties.  But while they may generally choose one or the other if they have to, that doesn't mean they ascribe to the entire platform of one party or the other... not even by a long shot.  Polls like this show that many, if not most Americans, really just want to be left alone and do what they do, without being troubled by the government.  Unfortunately, given the right media, and the right scare tactics, politicians have been able to scare them into giving up that liberty for some false protection of things they cherish, like their families and their children.

But do these Tea Parties do anything to serve those basic wants of the general population?  What started out well as a simple anti-bureaucracy and anti-tax movement (Taxed Enough Already) has transformed into something else.  While Sarah Palin did well to talk about the need for small government, she also concentrated a strange amount of time to terrorism and foreign policy.  She spoke glowingly about the Constitution, only to say it should be ignored when inconvenient in the fight on terrorism.  It was difficult to distinguish her talk from one you might hear at a GOP convention.  But the Tea Party movement started out not as a red-meat Republican movement, but as an anti-government movement. Foreign Policy had nothing to do with it.

While it has been nice to see so many people get off their couches and become active, it seems that they are becoming active in the wrong ways.  The Tea Party movement is shifting away from its small government roots to "use the big government to do the things I want"... which is how the Republican Party got in trouble in the first place.  Scott Brown, for all the Tea Party fan fare he got, supports Massachusetts Health Care (and voted for it as a state legislator).  That plan, is essentially the same one Democrats had proposed, but on a smaller scale.  Supporting him was nothing but an opportunistic way to stop Obama Care.  And yet, many Tea Party folks still support him as a Tea Partier despite the fact that he really doesn't believe in small government.  The reality is, his usefulness to the Tea Partiers is over.  They should really just drop him.

But it seems that the movement is trying to capture as many people as possible with as large of a tent as possible.  The problem is, many of the ideas being thrown around under that tent simply don't mix, or don't help anyone's cause.  While many Libertarians are happy to see people fight for small government, we're much less inclined to support those who want to refuse Constitutional Rights to people, or fight even more foreign wars.  Anti-Tax is fine, but being a birther (or a truther for that matter) isn't.  And what about immigration policy?  There seems to be a wide rift there as well.

It's hard to see exactly what the Tea Party movement is all about, except as a way for various people to vent their frustrations over whatever happens to be bothering them about government right now.  For my part, I will continue to vent my frustrations here.  I don't need a party to do that.