The tea party movement

            On January 19, 2009, Graham Makohoniuk, a part-time trader and a member of Ticker Forum, posted a casual invitation on the market-ticker.org forums to "Mail a tea bag to congress and to senate." a tactic that had first been attempted by the Libertarian Party in 1973. The idea quickly caught on with others on the forum, some of whom reported being attracted to the inexpensive, easy way to reach "everyone that voted for the bailout."

            The founder of market-ticker.org, Karl Denninger,published his own write-up on the proposed protest, titled "Tea Party February 1st?," which was posted in direct response to President Obama's inauguration occurring on the same day, and railed against the bailouts, the US national debt and "the fraud and abuse in our banking and financial system" which included the predatory lending practices currently at the center of the home mortgage foreclosure crisis Karl Denninger, who helped form FedUpUSA in the wake of the March 2008 Federal reserve bail out of Bear Sterns, had been a guest on both Glenn Beck and CNBC Reports by February  the idea had spread among conservative and libertarian-oriented blog forums, websites and through a viral email campaign, and Denninger has since been credited as one of the founders of the movement, and the organizer for the first Tea Party event.
           
            The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009. It endorses reduced government spending, opposition to taxation in varying degrees, reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit, and adherence to an originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution.

            The Tea Party movement has caucuses in the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. The Tea Party movement has no central leadership, but is composed of a loose affiliation of national and local groups that determine their own platforms and agendas.

            The Tea Party's most noted national figures include Republican politicians such as Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, Eric Cantor, and Michele Bachmann, with Paul described by some as the "intellectual godfather" of the movement. The Tea Party movement is not, as of 2011, a national political party; polls show that most Tea Partiers consider themselves to be Republicans, and the movement's supporters have tended to endorse Republican candidates. Commentators including Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport have suggested that the movement is not a new political group, but simply a rebranding of traditional Republican candidates and policies. An October 2010 Washington Post canvass of local Tea Party organizers found 87% saying "dissatisfaction with mainstream Republican Party leaders" was "an important factor in the support the group has received so far"