The Real Tea Party (the individuals who are protesting, not necessarily the people trying to represent them) are the hard working middle class individuals of middle America who have consistently been screwed by the establishment of both parties through most of my life. They are orderly, law abiding, and about as dangerous and intimidating as an army of baby kittens. There are no substantiated instances of racism, and most of the accusations of racism are driven by people who are trying to discredit the movement.

In general, I'm much more worried about the astro-turf protests that are always popping up but no media outlet is willing to discredit them for what they are:

DO you remember this going around during the election in emails?

The creator of this didn't even understand how it was racist, so my confidence in what conservatives consider racist isn't very strong.

Reagan was not liked by the GOP when he ran. He was not the one they wanted running for president. He was the Ron Paul of his time.

And you have not been shafted by Republicans. You have been shafted by Washington. I hope the last 18 months of the White-house, and 4 years in Congress, has at least proven to you that the problem is not Republican or Democrate. It's to few people having to much power.

What does that have to do with the Tea Party?

Obama goes around and tells blacks they need to vote to keep his policies going, like somehow just because they are Black, they have the same views politically as him. He doesn't see how that's racist either.

What is the 'real' Tea Party anymore?

This thread is crazy

Frightened of the tea party? Nut Up!

Maybe you should be more afraid of the radical socialist Obama agenda.  Or the fact that he won't work with republicans.

Or the fact he goes on a Spanish radio station and says that anyone who is concerned over illegal aliens is the enemy.

Or Obama suing Arizona because they want to protect their citizens  

But no were scared of the tea party.  

Much like the "real" Republicans, or the "real" Democrats, the "real" tea-party are the individuals who make up the party not the people who try to control it ...

In the absence of people injecting talking points and forcing partisan arguments, most of these people would share similar values to other people who are a part of their party; but these values would probably be much different from the values the elite in the party would be pushing.

I just feel like the tea party has become somewhat bogged down in too many competing idealogies - I can't really identify as a whole what it's fighting for now. If it was fighting to change the system into one that wasn't a duopoly I would be supporting it - but instead it just seems to be merging with the GOP.

@Mshillen. Obama isn't radical socialist. For a socialist look at somebody like Chavez. Obama is just a bit more socialist than most US politicians. Also I hardly think Obama can be blamed entirely for the Republicans and Democrats not getting along.

Except she then followed this with the fact that she didn't know what was in the 14th, 16th, or 17th admendents as well as she couldn't name a single recent supreme court decision.  For a self stated constitutional expert, that's pretty pathetic.

I would really like your sources for where all this stuff is coming from.  Just because one person in the party may support the whole church thing does not mean the party as a whole does.  And accusations of racism mean nothing.  I want real hard proof that they are being racist.  I can say person B is a racist whether he is or not, its just an accusation.

Overall, I don't think its scary as much as it is necessary.  As a conservative, I think both Republicans and Democrats have been stretching further and further away from what I think would be best (something right in the middle).  I think the whole Tea Party thing is finally making people think about the candidate they are voting for instead of the side that they will vote for.