From a Moment to a Movement: Tea Parties Look to Grow Up

They disagree with each other. They're disorganized. They want to be taken seriously by Congress but have no president, no spokesperson, and not even a singular Web site for information. Trying to find the person in charge of the July 4th tea parties is like a mission to the island in "Lord of the Flies."

But then again, that's the entire point of the tea party movement. Initially sparked by Rick Santelli's CNBC rant on the mortgage bailout, it is now a web of decidedly conservative, undeniably angry Americans who are speaking out against what they see as an unprecedented power grab by the federal government and the members of Congress who enable it.

"People are teed off," said Herman Cain, a popular conservative radio host in Atlanta, who will broadcast his show live from the Cobb County, Ga., tea party Friday night. "It appears that the elected officials, the leaders, they are not listening to the people. They are listening to themselves."

More than 1,400 tea parties are planned for the July 4th weekend, which will be the third round of such events since Feb. 27, when conservative groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax Reform urged members to protest the $787 billion stimulus bill passed by Congress and signed by President Obama.

Protesters in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Seattle and elsewhere carried signs saying things like "Are We in France Yet?" as they gathered at state capitals for speeches deriding government bailouts and profligate federal spending.

April 15 saw a new and louder round of protests, with more cities hosting Tax Day Tea Parties under the banner "Taxed Enough Already."

The tea parties planned for the July 4th weekend are taking a page out of the Founding Fathers' playbook, urging people to declare their independence from the influence of the government.

In Bemidji, Minn., organizers are planning a "Freedom over Socialism" rally with a picnic, fireworks and a "Liberty Line" of people along Bemidji Avenue carrying tax protest signs and American flags.

In St. George, Utah, politicians have been banned from Saturday's rally to make way for residents to literally get on their soapboxes and voice their concerns for two minutes each.

The Dallas, Texas, tea party will be at the South Fork Ranch, where Michelle Malkin, Mickey Dolenz from the Monkeys and an estimated 50,000 other people will celebrate the "original Declaration of Independence signed in 1776."

Some events will feature elected officials; others have banned them. Some tea parties are billed as protests, complete with chanting marchers, while others have banished the word "protest" and prefer to call their events "educational support systems."

The mixed messages are enough to make a person wonder who's in charge of this show, but the answer from anybody involved is invariably "nobody," especially not the GOP.

"This is not connected to the Republican Party at all," said Julianne Thompson, who helped organize the Atlanta Tea Party. "It has nothing to do with parties. We're Americans."

Thompson said members of her group, Tea Party Patriots, are working to channel earlier outrage over the stimulus package and government bailouts toward issues such as last week's passage of the energy bill in the House. On July 17, they'll protest at congressional district offices across the country against the health care reform package moving through Congress.

The tea parties have sparked other advocacy efforts. After being involved in the February and April tea parties, Ken Cook, a mortgage banker in Cobb County, Ga., joined the new the American Liberty Alliance to build what he calls a grassroots organization focused on issues like card check, bailouts and taxes. "The message to Congress is they better listen to us. If they like their jobs, they need to pay attention and act accordingly."

Accusations abound that tea party protests are more Astroturf than grassroots, and it's true that Republican lobbyists are indeed involved. FreedomWorks, chaired by Dick Armey, and Newt Gingrich's American Solutions, have put money and resources into the tea parties. Claims that the movement is purely grassroots and non-partisan do not marry with the reality that partisans and national organizations are involved, considering the sponsorship of tea party Web sites and instructional advice such as "How to Organize Your Own Tea Party Protest."

But a look at the map of the thousand-plus tea parties planned this weekend makes clear that however the tea party protests started, they have struck a nerve well beyond Washington. They also represent a level of conservative energy and activism that's reminiscent of MoveOn.org in the early 2000s.

"Where this leads has not been defined and it does not need to be defined," said Cain. "The first thing you do in a fight is show your muscle, and it's the muscle of we the people."