The Moment Has Arrived for the Tea Parties

One day, I would love to teach an advanced political science class that would examine all the mistakes of the Obama administration in putting together health care reform. The whole process has been one mistake filled move after another. The mistake that the Obama administration made regarding the Tea Party movement was by no means his worst. It just happened to occur at the right moment that handed the Tea Party movement the opportunity its been looking for. It's time has arrived. Detractors have asked in condescension what the movement is trying to accomplish since it arrived. Now, the movement has a chance to answer that question unequivocally. I believe the movement can and will act as the final nail in the Obama health care reform coffin.

As soon as Congress began coming back to its district, waves of fired up citizens began confronting them at town halls and even at grocery stores. These confrontations invariably found their way onto You Tube and then onto sympathetic media. Then, the MSM decided to pick up the story only of course they began mocking these folks as "astro turf", "out of control", and "shouting down the debate." The MSM tried to define the story rather than ignore it. They should have just ignored it. Now, the interest of the public is piqued.

These town hall confrontations will become a player among the universe of stories for the next month. So, while I'm not saying people will talk about nothing else, they will be talking about it. Dick Morris made a very astute and appropriate observation about this. He said that the media doesn't define the way in which we interpret the story. Instead, the define the agenda by what they happen to report on. As such, it's totally irrelevant how they try and define the town hall confrontations, what's important is that they're talking about them.

So, the town halls will become a recurring story over the next month. As such, what we'll hear is an endless stream of voters that hate the health care plan. They will spend a month picking it apart, all on video, and cutting it up bit by bit. The Obama health care reform bill is about to suffer death by one thousand paper cuts only they won't be paper cuts but video clips. Is this really the position the Obama administration wants to be in right now?

Now, I have called the town hall confrontations the metamorphosis of the Tea Party movement. There's no question that the same sort of folks that would have attended a Tea Party is very likely to attend one of these town halls. Now, this very Tea Party movement is in a position to bury health care reform. In fact, they can bury it so badly that Obama's presidency would suffer irreparable damage along with it.






The Tea Parties have a chance to put the final excruciatingly painful nail in the coffin of health care reform. We are in for an endless stream of these sorts of videos. You can bet that groups will form on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. They will share these videos with each other. It will just be an orgy of ordinary citizens bashing health care in an abusive, highly critical, and passionately angry sort of a way.


Furthermore, if the Tea Parties are crafty they listen to the criticism and adjust. For instance, there's one criticism that says that there's too much screaming and it drowns out all debate. Well, maybe going forward these folks tone it down on the endless screaming and shouting and ask more critical questions. Others say people look out of control. Maybe, moving forward, everyone in attendance should know that their question is being video taped and make sure that they remain more in control. In reality, the beauty is that these videos will become organic. As more of these are made, the videos will evolve. That's what will keep it fascinating.

By the end of a month of non stop criticism from ordinary voters, health care will poll in the thirties. They'll come back to D.C. and have nothing to do. At that level, they wouldn't get anywhere near the votes necessary to pass it. The president's entire agenda will be blown up. Now, he'll have the luxury of having more than a year to right the ship before the election, but this is going to be devastating.