Last summer, Democrats argued that the tea party movement was the AstroTurf creation of corporate groups. Now that the grass-roots conservative resurgence has emerged as a clear force on the right, the left is making a different case: that tea parties are simply the enemy. 
 
 To that end, the Agenda Project, a new, progressive group with roots in New York's fundraising scene and a goal of strengthening the progressive movement, has launched the "F*ck Tea" project, which is aimed, the group's founder Erica Payne wrote in an e-mail this morning, "to dismiss the tea party and promote the progressive cause." 
 
 ""We will be launching new products in the next several months to help people all over the country F*ck Tea," Payne told POLITICO. "Products like a Glenn Beck Bowl Buddy (Beck B Scrubbin) and others are perfect holiday gifts or just a great way to say, 'I love you and our country' to your spouse, friend or family." 
 
 Payne, a veteran consultant to progressive groups, is a co-founder of the Democracy Alliance, the low-profile group of liberal mega-donors who helped build the Center for American Progress and other new organizations that grew in the Bush years. 
 
 The new project, so far, features merchandise, polling statistics aimed to paint tea party members as ignorant and a mocking video. 
 
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 permalink ||||| If imitation is the highest form of flattery, the "tea party" movement must be honored. 
 
 In an effort to replicate the tea party's success, 170 liberal and civil rights groups are forming a coalition that they hope will match the movement's political energy and influence. They promise to "counter the tea party narrative" and help the progressive movement find its voice again after 18 months of floundering. 
 
 The large-scale attempt at liberal unity, dubbed "One Nation," will try to revive themes that energized the progressive grassroots two years ago. In a repurposing of Barack Obama's old campaign slogan, organizers are demanding "all the change" they voted for -- a poke at the White House. 
 
 But the liberal groups have long had a kind of sibling rivalry, jostling over competing agendas and seeking to influence some of the same lawmakers. In forming the coalition, the groups struggled to settle on a name. Even now, two of the major players disagree about who came up with the idea of holding a march this fall. 
 
 In this respect, at least, the liberal effort already resembles the fractious tea party movement. In February, some tea party groups skipped a long-planned gathering in Nashville in protest of alleged profiteering by convention organizers. Tea partiers have also argued about which candidates represent the movement. 
 
 Despite the friction among liberal groups, the effort behind "One Nation" was born of a certain necessity: At one of the first meetings, Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, said, "Raise your hand if you can push your part of the agenda all by yourself." 
 
 No hands shot up. 
 
 Indeed, a promised overhaul of immigration law is virtually dead this year. Legislation that labor unions say would make it easier for them to grow their membership are stalled in Congress. The jobless rate is 15.4 percent for blacks and 12.4 percent for Hispanics, compared with 8.6 percent for whites. 
 
 "Having been confronted with the specter of the tea party . . . we felt it urgent to organize the majority of this country, which voted in 2008 and has gone back to the couch," said Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP. "We've been split off in different directions." 
 
 The groups involved represent the core of the first-time voters who backed President Obama -- including the National Council of La Raza, NAACP, AFL-CIO, SEIU and the United States Student Association. (The effort is separate from the Democratic Party's plan to spend $50 million trying to reach those same voters.) 
 
 Their aha moment happened after the health-care overhaul passed this spring. Liberal groups, who focused their collective strength to push the bill against heavy resistance, felt relevant and effective for the first time in a long while. That health-care coalition -- composed of civil rights groups, student activists and labor leaders -- liked the winning feeling. 
 
 "In many ways, the bitter fight for health-care reform has painfully highlighted that we must go back to the grassroots organizing that won us the election in the first place," said George Gresham, president of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. "We must reassert our strength as the social movement that ushered Obama into office."
– Progressives are taking off the kid gloves. They've tried dismissing the validity of the tea party movement but now have a new approach: f*ck them. The Agenda Project has launched a "F*ck Tea" project, complete with T-shirts, coffee mugs, and more merchandise to come. The point is simply to "dismiss the tea party and promote the progressive cause," the group's founder tells Ben Smith of Politico. To that end, the F*ck Tea website features polling statistics meant to ridicule tea partiers: 59% like Glenn Beck. 66% think global warming does not exist or will not have a serious impact. 40% think Sarah Palin would be a good president. ...and so on. Click here to read about the Tea Party's fundraising troubles.