Over at American Thinker a post caught my eye because the author captures my experiences with the Tea Party people.

In Northwest Indiana we have patriots that gather around two tea party groups. One group is lead by a woman and the other by a man. This is not a woman vs man thing, but merely a way of distinguishing the two groups. The woman began her group from her living room and it is the largest in the area. She has never ran for office and has no plans to run for office. Her events draw large crowds. The man’s group is run by a politician who has run for Congress many times and jumped onto the Tea Party bandwagon as a Republican candidate for Congress.

His focus at protests has not been the protest itself but in sending out minions to gather names, addresses and telephone numbers. We know why politicians do that sort of thing. This guy does this under the guise of being a Tea Party leader who needs all of that personal information so that he can keep you informed. Yeah, right, you need our street addresses and telephone numbers? Mark my words, Tea Party people will begin to see his campaign propaganda show up in their mailboxes, at their front door and be phoned during dinner come campaign time. And some Tea Party people may wonder how this politician got their personal info. It is an underhanded and classless move by this guy.

He takes no initiative to pursue freedoms for the people as much as he takes his lead from the Indiana State tea party group. They are the self appointed leaders for the State of Indiana and reside in the Indianapolis area. He has pursued good relations with the State group as a method of eventually using them to promote his run for Congress. They don’t believe he is anything but a great tea party guy and the people in Northwest Indiana who actually live here and know about this guy have been trying to wake up State for a long time. The Indiana State Tea Party is being used by this guy and it makes a person wonder just what is going on in Indy when they have allowed a politician to take over a tea party.

People are murmuring that the Tea Party people should vote and campaign for this guy because he is a Tea Partier. They could not be further from the truth and this becomes a dangerous position for the Tea Patry. Just because a person, a politician has aligned himself with the Tea Party movement, he or she should NOT be given a pass and be viewed as the best candidate. People must investigate each and every candidate as an individual and ignore any R, D, I, G or whatever after their name. Republicans ARE trying to use the Tea Party for their political gain. We saw and continue to see that with The Tea Patry Express. We have a very clear example here in NWI with they guy who runs a tea party here, a Republican who saw this as a political vehicle from day one.

Listen, politicians such as the one I am referring to are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They take no action, join no group unless they see a way to use that group for their personal gain, for votes while stepping on the back’s of the unsuspecting Tea Party people to attain a self-centered, narcissistic goal of winning a political office.

This ties into what Kyle-Anne states as her experience below in that the tea party people smell something funky when it comes to politicians using the Tea Party Movement. Funky is not the word for the Patriots in Northwest Indiana. It outright stinks up in here.

Sure, politicians may have an opinion that is shared or resembles what the Tea Party Movement stands for, but to be a politician and run a tea party, to actively run for Congress and run a tea party, to pull some stunts at tea parties that shows people that you are a politician first and an American second, to write website posts that push your political agenda while pretending that no-one notices that you are a politician using the Tea party movement, well, those things do  not pass the smell test and yes, We The People notice.

Kyle-Anne Shiver writes: (Excerpts posted below. Bolding mine. Read the entire article HERE.)

Since last April, I’ve written a few columns on the Tea Parties, but I had never actually
attended one in person. I harbored a few misconceptions, formed at a
distance through the media’s drive-by lens. Being a woman who tends to
cower in crowds and who loves the security and solitude of my little
office-cloister, I had been content to write based on the observations
of others. But an Alabama homemaker-turned-activist, Suzanne Green of
Birmingham, pulled me into the bosom of the Tea Party movement along
with the Rainy Day Patriots.

So what’s a Tea Party?

In
a nutshell, the Tea Parties are a visible expression of the widespread
rekindling of the love of liberty. This rekindling of freedom’s fires
seems to be occurring among diverse individuals independently, and then
they seek out fired-up others with whom to connect. Among Tea Party
participants, there is a demonstrated willingness to actually do
something tangible in order to claim those unalienable rights of which
our Founders wrote, and for which so many have given their lives in
battle.

This
may be the movement Americans truly have been waiting for. It’s the
real deal, the genuine article. It comes from the groundswell of the
people, not from the power-broker elites in political, corporate, or
religious America. It’s middle-class, thoroughly unpretentious, with a
good sense of humor and a keen disdain for things like faux Greek
columns, tacky props, and professionally written hyperbole. At a Tea
Party, you won’t find puffed-up hubris or even a tad of the liberally
popular it’s-all-about-me syndrome.  

Party operatives? Not
welcome. Political candidates?  Keep your mouths shut and your ears
open. Prefer a D or an R after your name? Not here, not on our time, or
on our dime.

The clear message: This is the people’s movement. Outsiders, opportunists, and party pols are vehemently not invited.
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