What does the Tea Party want?
The populist Right-wing movement in the United States called the Tea Party is named from the acronym for Taxed Enough Already and from the pre-revolutionary action in Boston harbour. It is certainly anti-Democrat and powerfully anti-Obama but, in many respects, it is also anti mainstream Republicanism.
Although the movement is represented as a spontaneous grass-roots party with no central organisation and no leader, the intellectual powerhouse behind the movement in an organisation called Freedom Works which has a full agenda.
In brief, the movement wants a much smaller role for the federal government with more power for the 50 states – a battle some of us thought had been fought and lost in the American civil war. The results of today’s mid-term Congressional elections will determine to what extent this agenda replaces Obama’s agenda.