Persons of the Year: the Tea Party Movement

It was the spring of 2009 when the Tea Party movement made its first impact. Just weeks after Barack Obama took office, the public was already stirring. After Congress passed a huge stimulus, and had promised to pass a budget with the largest deficit in U.S. history, the grassroots movement of the right and of disaffected independents started to take shape. All through 2009, they fought the huge Democrat majorities from passing Obamacare, and were able to successfully kill off the public option.

In January, spurred by the support of the Tea Party, Republicans were able to elect Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts...supposedly to be the 41st vote against Obamacare. However, that would not be enough. In February, Democrats were able to successfully pass their $1.5 trillion health care program through reconciliation, and against the opinion of the majority of Americans.

That was the final catalyst for the Tea Party to truly gain strength and momentum. After almost a year of trying to convince the governing party that their health care policy was too extreme for the bulk of the nation, Democrats simply ignored them, and went against the wishes of a significant majority of the population.

Conventional wisdom from the left at the time was that the Tea Party would fade into oblivion. However, they did not disappear. Far from it. Instead, they refocused their sights to the 2010 elections. If they didn't have the power to reform the entire country in a single move, then they would start with reform of their party. Although not always successful, clearly the results were satisfactory. 2010 gave Republicans their largest gains since 1994, and significantly moved both Houses of Congress to the right.

When picking a person of the year (or in this cases persons of the year) one has to look at their large scale impact on society. Within the United States, no movement or group has had the impact that the Tea Party has had over the past 20 months. One could argue that they have done the impossible...and have successfully moved Barack Obama to the middle (well, maybe not the middle, but let us say, less far left). They have given the Republican party focus that it had completely been lacking since the 2008 elections; some would argue that focus had been missing for much of the past decade.

If the Tea Partiers are able to keep Republican's feet to the fire, and force them to make difficult decisions on spending, the deficit, and maintaining a small but efficient government, their power and influence will be greater than anyone else for the year 2010.