• Palin, while explic­itly say­ing the move­ment had no leader, implic­itly offered her­self up as one. After this speech, which was widely cov­ered on the inter­net and car­ried on tele­vi­sion, the tea party move­ment and Sarah Palin will be inex­tri­ca­bly intertwined.
• Nashville Post con­ser­v­a­tive critic A.C. Klein­hei­der • Regard­ing this weekend’s Tea Party con­ven­tion, which he says hurt the move­ment by giv­ing it a de facto leader in the form of Sarah Palin. He was par­tic­u­larly annoyed that her speech invoked Ronald Rea­gan, who, among other things, was a huge spender while in office. It kinda goes against the mes­sage the Tea Party is try­ing for, he argues. Ulti­mately, that’s prob­a­bly what’s going to hap­pen to the move­ment – peo­ple who don’t under­stand that it’s against big gov­ern­ment are going to try to co-opt it as a move­ment for Repub­li­can ideals. While we’re not exactly in favor of what the Tea Party is pitch­ing, we def­i­nitely think there’s a lot of missing-the-point going on. source

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