Quotes About The Tea Party Movement

#1. I think everyday people on the street who have never been affiliated with the tea party movement are alarmed with the spending and the debt that we have.

Kristi Noem

#2. Let us be clear about one thing: The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover of it.

Matt Kibbe

#3. The Tea Party movement as I perceive it is all about recognizing the difference between state and federal powers. And that there are limits to federal power that need to be respected.

Mike Lee

#4. 'Rage' is the word that most often attaches itself to the Tea Party movement, and it's true that, from the outside looking in, their public demonstrations appear to be more enraged than any political events in America since the race riots and anti-war protests of the 1960s.

Jonathan Raban

#5. The Tea Party movement itself is maybe 15, 20 percent of the electorate. It's relatively affluent, white, nativist. You know, it has rather traditional nativist streaks to it. But what is much more important, I think, is the - is its outrage.

Noam Chomsky

#6. But I think the - what the tea party movement demonstrates, and I think the, the, the enthusiasm that we're seeing from independents and Republicans, is that if Washington isn't going to change itself, then we're going to change Washington. And I think that's what we're seeing.

John Cornyn

#7. I think what the Tea Party movement is - I'm all for it; they're out there fighting for our rights, fighting for what our forefathers stood for.

Luke Scott

#8. The Republican Party would be really smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible.

Sarah Palin

#9. But to say that Sarah Palin and the tea party movement is responsible for vandalism or threats is just a way to dismiss the American people and, and their dissatisfaction with this health care bill.

Laura Ingraham

#10. The reality of it is I think the GOP - Republicans and certainly conservatives - will partner with the Tea Party movement around this country.

Michael Steele

#11. I think that's what activates the Tea Party Movement. What they see is the government interfering with their lives and with the inheritance of their children. Are we going to pass down liberty or deficits? And that's really what this movement is about.

Sharron Angle

#12. The tea party movement and its passion arose in response to trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and out of a sense that Washington is in need of dire fiscal reform.

Ari Fleischer

#13. The Tea Party movement is a wide and diverse group. It will hurt the Republican Party if some elements of the Tea Party decide to become third party advocates because it will split the conservative vote.

Karl Rove

#14. President Obama has only had two major policy victories during his tenure: the stimulus package and Obamacare. Both are massively unpopular. The stimulus package launched the Tea Party movement. Obamacare led to the Republican wipeout of 2010.

Ben Shapiro

#15. Make no mistake about it. These are not 'kookie' birds. Right now the greatest player, the big tent on the political scene in America, is called the Tea Party movement.

Dick Armey

#16. The Tea Party movement went off on a more extreme agenda that I did not support at all, and was very frustrated by it, to the point that not only did I change parties, I decided to do something about it and run for Congress.

Patrick Murphy

#17. Our office corner has really become an area where the Tea party movement congregates and the rhetoric is really heated. Not just the calls but the e-mails, the slurs.

Gabrielle Giffords

#18. If you look underneath the surface of the Tea Party movement, on the other hand, you will find that it is not sophisticated. It's not like these people have read the economist Friedrich August von Hayek.

Karl Rove

#19. He was undoubtedly intelligent and well informed, but too right-wing for Grane's tastes. It was rare to find a well-educated Swede who was also a wholehearted supporter of the American Republican Party - he even expressed some sympathy for the Tea Party movement.

David Lagercrantz

#20. The thing they're trying to stop is 30-million people getting health insurance. That's the substance.

Chris Hayes

#21. You know, the Tea Party is a - first of all, it is a significant movement, and I think the media and some pundits have tried to write it off as a bunch of cranks or something. But, in fact, it's really a very legitimate and fairly significant swath of voters out there.

Mark McKinnon

#22. I call it small government, grass-roots activism: The Tea Party activists are a part of it, FreedomWorks is part of it. FreedomWorks is the longest-standing, most active organization within this movement.

Dick Armey

#23. The Occupy movement needs an organizing principle, and - just as the Tea Party did - it needs some actual measures of success. Choose one candidate whose agenda is squarely within that of the movement and make his or her electoral success a focal point.

Eliot Spitzer

#24. I mean, people who say that the Tea Party isn't a grassroots movement, I think, are incorrect. I think in some respects, it is a grassroots movement.

Matt Taibbi

#25. Well you know I'm very supportive of what the Tea Party is trying to do. They're very concerned with spending, the deficit, the bailouts, you know all of those kinds of things. But I really think that the strength of the Tea Party is being a grassroots movement.

John Boozman

#26. One way the Tea Party has benefited female candidates - and the conservative movement generally - is by consciously steering clear of social issues.

Hanna Rosin

#27. English does not distinguish between arrogant-up (irreverence toward the temporarily powerful) and arrogant-down (directed at the small guy).

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#28. The Tea Party is an organic, spontaneous movement that rose up in opposition to to the Pelosi-Reid-Obama agenda.

Michele Bachmann

#29. Ironically, the rise of the Tea Party increased the interventions of the Fed that the movement denounced.

Yanis Varoufakis

#30. The Tea Party has very close affinities with independent third-party movements like the George Wallace movement. The Tea Party is still inchoate, still trying to figure out what it's going to become.

Hampton Sides

#31. Unlike the Tea Party, who see themselves as the customers of government, people in the Occupy Wall Street movement understand that we are the government. Stated most simply, we are trying to run a 21st-century society on a 13th-century economic operating system. It just doesn't work.

Douglas Rushkoff

#32. I ran for office originally as part of this Tea Party Movement because we were upset with Republicans who've doubled the debt. We were upset with Republicans that bailed out the banks.

Rand Paul

#33. My political views have since I was a kid someway or another reflected the concerns of Tea Party movement.

Mike Lee

#34. My presence in the social media and on the Internet is much bigger than many of the other candidates, including Mitt Romney. So, when you take the social media and you take the Tea Party citizens movement, you have a combination there that, quite frankly, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had a chance.

Herman Cain

#35. Don't let any of 'em in the room 'til my guy gets what he needs. We'll be outta here before they get their gloves on.
Tea Party Teddy's Legacy

Dianne Harman