Understanding the Movement

April 6, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The tea party is making a lot of noise, but the angry-at-government movement has yet to establish itself as a force that can determine the outcome of November’s congressional elections. The key could be forging alliances with GOP candidates, but tea partiers in nearly every state are leery of that if not downright opposed.

“The day there’s an organized tea party in Wisconsin,” says Mark Block, who runs tea-party rallies in the state, “is the day the tea-party movement dies.”

The Associated Press reviewed tea-party chapters across the country, interviewing dozens of local organizers as well as Democratic and Republican strategists to produce a portrait of the movement to date — and its prospects for tipping congressional elections this fall. Though it’s far too early for any long-term verdict on the tea party — even defining what short-term success would be for its members can be a challenge — the AP found that:

The embryonic movement is not as much a force that drives public opinion as a reflection of it.

Local chapters are underfunded, loosely aligned and often at odds with one another.

The lack of a single leader, issue or strategic goal sets them apart from most politically potent movements.

America’s tea party is a hodgepodge of barely affiliated groups, a home to the politically homeless, a fast-growing swath of citizens who are frustrated with Washington, their own state capitals and both major political parties. Most describe themselves as conservatives or libertarians. They rarely identify themselves as Democrats.

Last year’s rise of the tea party closely tracked polls showing declining faith in government, confidence in the nation’s future and approval of President Barack Obama and Congress. Government bailouts and Obama’s trillion-dollar push to overhaul the U.S. health-care system proved too much for people like Ralph Sprovier, a regional coordinator for Illinois Tea.

“We’re regular people who are p---ed off at our government — period, end of story,” says Sprovier. “Defend us, don’t spend more than we have, get the budget balanced and listen to what we say.”

But listening doesn’t guarantee understanding. Tea-party regulars back candidates who support debt reduction. Or free markets. Or states’ rights. Or civil liberties. Or tort reform. Or term limits. Or abolishing federal agencies. They champion some of these issues — but not always all of them — and sometimes many more. Generalizing the movement is a fool’s errand.

This we know: Tea parties know how to produce crowds. In the footsteps of the Boston Tea Party more than two centuries ago, organizers use e-mail, social networking and other electronic tools to draw enormous numbers of disaffected Americans together. Some wear Revolutionary-era garb and carry signs bearing the language of 18th-century patriots — “Don’t tread on me!” is a popular one.

The organization seems strongest in places where lobbyists and GOP party operatives such as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey pull levers. Their involvement hardly squares with the anti-political sentiment that drives grass-roots activists such as Bill Hennessy.

“I’m not into politics,” the Missouri rally organizer says. The tea party itself is not a political party — and there are no signs it ever will be.