They may be the real deal... they've already upset a few huge republicans in the primaries.  A couple like Bennett in Utah who did nothing but help their state.

Rand Paul won by a landslide... things are getting quite interesting.  If this keeps up, the current Republican head of Senate will be out of a job in 2 years.

It's scary to be a Neo-Con Republican these days... and from the embarrising way a lot of democrats are handling these Tea Party guys it shows they're pretty scared as well.

Bennett voted for the bailouts.

Its about time the Neo-Cons got thrown out on their rears.

Maybe we can get some real old-school Republicans in there like Neo-Goldwaters.

BTW, Specter is dying in PA. Sestak is up by about 60,000 votes with no hope of recovery.

smell that sweet sweet irony

:( I actually voted for Specter, too. He was one of the very few Republicans i respected, and i was glad for the opportunity to vote for him for once. Sestak is obnoxious. Ideologically sound, but obnoxious.

Thank god. I have despised him for years.

SO is the Tea Party just a pun on the Boston Tea Party, or is it actually a party of sorts? Could people start running under the tea party banner, possibly becoming a legit third party?

It'd be interesting if more traditional conservatives began running under a Tea Party banner, leaving the Republican Party to the neo-cons.

As far as I know it's a pun on the Boston Tea Party.

It probably COULD of been a legit third party.  You could tell it was coming when both Democrats and Republicans started attacking them on both sides as fringe racist lunatics.

It doesn't appear like it will be a third party though because they are doing such a great job destroying Republicans in the primaries.  Right now they seem to be luring fiscally conservative democrats over to republican primaries and are ousting NeoCons in a few states.

At this rate it looks like they may end up getting rid of the Bush/Cheney style Republicans and go into a more Libretarian or regular Conservative type Republican party.

At worst it looks like they'll have some Libretarian candidates in office under the Republican name.

It's going to hurt the Republicans because if they don't elect someone like Ron Paul, the Tea Party goers will probably go for an independent like Ron Paul or a similiar guy in the primaries along with a lot of moderates.

So it'd kinda be like a Bull-Moose party type thing I think, but not based on one person.  If the momentum holds it could be a very interestng change in the way politics worse.  "Elect one of our guys or we walk"  except they actually mean it, unlike evangelicals or some group like that.

That's somewhat disappointing, given it could be a nice mixup for American politics, helping to rid us of this crappy two party system.

I'm every interested in the way things are heading now, though.