What? No mainstream media covering this? Shocking!

[Jester]

The Tea Party movement is not a third party movement ...

True. It's a second-party movement - the Republicans.

... but rather a set of principles regarding establishing the constitutionality of law (not fuzzy, but clearly), reducing the burden of government, and increasing personal liberty and prosperity.

Used to be an inchoate mass of discontent from the right wing of the Republican party, plus the original protestor core of fringe lunatics, survivalists, Larouchies, the tattered remains of the Ron Paul Revolution, and so on.

Now it's just a media brand for the Republicans.

They seek to hold their candidates, Republican or Democrat more accountable to serving the interests of the people, and not special interests.

I count exactly one Democratic candidate ever endorsed by the tea party, Walt Minnick. And he rejected it. All the rest are Republicans, and not generally moderate ones either.

I've heard it said that the Tea Party doesn't endorse candidates, but rather the candidate needs to choose to endorse the principles of the Tea party. It's the Democrats and the Republicans that use division and discord as political weapons.

Google "tea party endorses" and read them off for yourself. (Rather comically, including an article about how the tea party endorses no candidates...)

Once upon a time, this was a strange outpouring of fringe discontent that sparked some small to moderate sized protests in the wake of the 2008 election. It has long since ceased to be that, and is now simply a convenient label for the right wing of the Republican party in an era where the official brand identity has become toxic. Any hint of this being a bipartisan, or non-partisan movement died almost as soon as it was born.

-Jester