Chris Stephen: Angry America set for Tea Party – but trouble's brewing

IT STARTED out as a grass-roots organisation opposed to President Barack Obama's grandiose spending plans, but as it nears its first anniversary, the United States' newest, loudest protest group, the Tea Party movement, shows signs of imploding.

It takes its name from the Boston Tea Party, one of the seminal events in American history, when, in a harbinger of the revolution to come, colonists dumped tea into Boston harbour to protest against harsh import taxes imposed by the British Crown.

The modern incarnation came into the spotlight last April, when, to mark tax deadline day, and to complain about federal spending, a thousand protesters gathered in Washington DC to dump a box of tea over the White House fence.

Through the summer, activists across the US picketed Democratic Party town-hall meetings to shout down speakers trying to push the case for healthcare reform.

Some in Europe were shocked at the seeming hatred towards health reform, with Obama declared a "socialist" for his commitment to a measure that would improve the quality of life for millions of Americans.

In September, 75,000 marched in the capital, the biggest opposition demonstration Obama has faced, and a movement was born.

Or maybe not. This weekend sees its first convention, the Tea Party Nation, in a hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, and it is due to be addressed tonight by keynote speaker Sarah Palin, the darling of the Republican right.

But this convention is a far cry from anything the rest of the world would recognise as "grass roots".

For one thing, organisers are charging admission, a hefty $549 (350). For another, much of that is going to pay a $100,000 fee for Palin's attendance. And for another, the guest list is dominated by speakers from the far right of the Republican Party, and some to the right of that.

They include former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo, an anti-abortion, anti-immigration activist. Then there are speakers from Judicial Watch, also heavy on anti-immigration, along with Ana Puig, a commentator who compares Obama's administration with South American Marxist dictatorships.

What has upset some other Tea Party groups are revelations that Tea Party Nation is registered as a private company and may make a tidy profit – those revelations have already seen a sponsor and two Republican congresswomen pull out.

And there's the rub: the Bostonians who heaved all that tea into the harbour in 1773 were not trying to turn a profit. And their gesture was aimed not at other Americans but at an exploitative colonial power.

And far from embracing all Americans, Tea Party leaders subscribe to a checklist of causes embraced by the conservative wing of the Republican Party: anti-abortion, anti-immigration, anti-healthcare reform. They also include the "birthers" – a popular sub-group who insist, despite records to the contrary, that Obama was not born in the US and should not be president.

Angry about falling house prices and a gridlocked economy, and anxious about the future, the Tea Partyers are looking for someone to blame – that someone being Democrats in general and Obama in particular.

Some Democrats dismiss the movement as no more than Republican conservatives in new clothes, but that misses the point. Whatever controversies dog the leaders, the rank and file of the Tea Party is very real, and very angry.

As such, they are testament to the failure of Obama's aspiration to become a unifying president. Far from winning over these conservatives, his decision to bail out ailing car-makers and homeowners and pump billions into job creation programmes have deepened the political divide.

A Rasmussen poll found that 51 per cent of Americans were sympathetic to the anti-spending platform of the Tea Partyers, with a further 32 per cent strongly supportive.

Even if the Tea Party movement fragments over the controversies of its first attempt at a convention, conservatives, not least Palin, will be hoping its energy will cement their hold on the Republican Party.

But, long term, this could be a disaster for the GOP's election prospects. Social conservatives in America are a powerful force, but policies such as banning Darwinism in schools mean they remain a minority.

And any presidential candidate wanting to get to the White House knows that success depends on winning that crucial middle ground, not appealing to the extremes.

Perhaps, then, as Obama watched that box of tea being dumped on to his front lawn last spring, he felt not alarm but elation at the prospect that, as the conservatives drag the Republican Party to the right, they will leave the middle ground all to him.