Politics: Did Sarah Palin hijack the entire Tea Party movement? Maybe
- Palin, while explicitly saying the movement had no leader, implicitly offered herself up as one. After this speech, which was widely covered on the internet and carried on television, the tea party movement and Sarah Palin will be inextricably intertwined.
- Nashville Post conservative critic A.C. Kleinheider • Regarding this weekend’s Tea Party convention, which he says hurt the movement by giving it a de facto leader in the form of Sarah Palin. He was particularly annoyed that her speech invoked Ronald Reagan, who, among other things, was a huge spender while in office. It kinda goes against the message the Tea Party is trying for, he argues. Ultimately, that’s probably what’s going to happen to the movement – people who don’t understand that it’s against big government are going to try to co-opt it as a movement for Republican ideals. While we’re not exactly in favor of what the Tea Party is pitching, we definitely think there’s a lot of missing-the-point going on. source