Allahpundit
HotAir.com
7/21/2010
CNN’s got the membership roster; scroll down and take a gander. Interestingly, despite all the press the movement’s gotten for being populated by women, there’s only one woman on the list right now aside from Bachmann herself. Also, shockingly, no Ron Paul, who’s not only considered a godfather of the movement by some but whose own son has been talking up the idea of a similar caucus in the Senate. (Perhaps indicative of GOP candidates wanting to distance themselves from the brand a bit, Marco Rubio seems lukewarm to the idea.) Maybe Paul’s playing the role of the indie band that refuses to join the big corporate label because he doesn’t want to “sell out.” Authenticity.
Here’s the presser, which is light on congresscritters and heavy on actual grassroots tea partiers. Enjoy the attention, Bachmann, because the RINOs are coming to getcha. Exit question via Powerline: Are tea partiers perhaps a little too, er, “authentic” in their choice of primary candidates? (Exit answer via PPP: Maybe!)
Read also The Tea Party Goes to Washington at Founding Bloggers:
It’s official. There is now a Tea Party Caucus in the Congress of the United States of America.
Representative Michelle Bachmann filed the paperwork late last week, and the approval was granted almost immediately…
…Confidential sources, however, have told me that Mitch McConnell has quietly been traveling around the country raising money against potential Tea Party candidates, and Michael Steele has been almost silent in the face of race-libel charges [emphasis CAJ] from elected Democrats and the NAACP, so I don’t think there is much to worry about on that front.
Libertarians and Conservatives in the Tea Party should embrace this caucus for a number of reasons. First of all, even though Bachmann’s office denies this, this caucus could prove to be a formidable rival to the Congressional Progressive Caucus. More importantly though, the next time Democrats and their media organs label the Tea Party as racist, by extension they will be calling identifiable members of congress racists, too…