Got back from the Tea Party across from the White House — soaked from the steady hard rain. But there were lots of people there, and not the mangy-lefty-protester types but regular folks, moms with kids, old people, guys in suits on their lunch hour — probably very few of them ever having attended a protest before. Spirits seemed high, despite everyone being drenched and only a handful of people being able to hear, or even see, the speakers. Glenn Reynolds may be reaching a bit when he writes “The mainstream Republican Party still seems limp and disorganized. This grassroots effort may revitalize it. Or the tea-party movement may lead to a new third party that may replace the GOP, just as the GOP replaced the fractured and hapless Whigs.” But here’s hoping.
Update: A reader wrote me saying that at the Greenville, S.C., Tea Party, “They will be selling the ‘Obama burger’ — you pay for one and they cut it in half and give the rest to the guy behind you for free!!” Our team needs more political theater and fewer marketing consultants.