It depends who you ask. If you ask the GOP leadership, “we’re all the Tea Party…”

Read about it here. To excerpt:

  • House Republican leader John Boehner says: “There really is no difference between what Republicans believe in and what the Tea Party activists believe in.”
  • Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele says: “If I weren’t chair of the RNC I’d be out there in the Tea Party movement.”

This Tea Party person says:  Dear GOP ‘Leaders’:

There are some minor differences between the Republican Party and the Tea Party:

  • Republican leaders want to be Tea Party members; Tea Party members don’t necessarily want to be Republicans. I sure as hell don’t.
  • The Tea Party is about fiscal restraint. The Republicans executed the greatest spending spree in US history under President Bush (until Obama broke that record) and supported (still support?) earmarks.
  • The Tea Party is about Constitutional adherence. The Republicans drove for and passed the Patriot Act, passed unfunded mandates, ignored the Tenth Amendment, etc.
  • The Republicans also have a social agenda on abortion, gay marriage, etc. The Tea Party does not. There are members in the Tea Party who are social conservatives, social libertarians, social liberals, etc. The Tea Party movement does not have a stance on these issues. The way I look at it (just one person’s opinion): when the plane is in a nose-dive and about to crash, I don’t care if Adam and Steve are holding hands in row 17. Save the country, then we can chat about that other stuff. Just one man’s opinion. But you can bet that opinion isn’t welcome in the GOP.

The great British statesman Benjamin Disraeli could have been talking about the pandering, spineless Republican Party leadership when he mocked: “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?”

The GOP leadership doesn’t get it. They never have. They still don’t.