I still like the Tea Party movement...

I like that there is a renewed interest in keeping the focus of the Tea Party movement on the "movement" part and not on the "Party" portion of the label. Seems that in one afternoon, they raised more than $80,000 to target the re-election campaign of Rep. Stupak (D-MI), who flipped his no vote to a yay and helped pass the reform legislation of Pelosi-Reid.

They are keeping the focus on facts and details, rather than on changing the GOP or countering with an alternative conservative party that would ultimately just divide the vote hopelessly. They are making the effort a means by which traditional conservative values towards government and taxes are made more apparent by moving their "tour" through regions where key seats are in contention. $400k was raised and spent on the MA campaign that won Brown the seat held by Kennedy, and they have already raised $500k for advertising to help defeat Reid in NV. The MI total is expected to exceed $250k by the end of the day today for the war-chest against Stupak... and that in one of the most economically depressed States in the Union.

They have done an excellent job of rebutting the claims that racial slurs were thrown at black Congressional members as they walked past Tea Party protesters just a few weeks ago, using the very vocal and enthusiastic support of the members of the Tea Party movement who are, themselves, black. Ward Connerly even wrote a piece for the NRO that challenged Rep Jesse Jackson Jr. to release his phone video footage of the event to see if any of the slurs and slanders he alleged he heard were recorded on the phone... something the author doubts very much.

Building awareness, raising money, keeping key issues on the table... that is a role that the Tea Party can fill admirably, without dividing the country. It is an almost unprecedented opportunity to show that America really is "center-right" in its orientation, and that what has served this country best over the last 230 years is the individualism inherent in the Constitutional freedoms that we can all now enjoy fully and freely.