'We can't always agree' 
 
 
 
 There is little agreement among the leaders of various groups about what issue the tea party should be most concerned about. But a new Washington Post canvass of hundreds of local tea party groups reveals a different sort of organization, one that is not so much a movement as a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process. As for the rest, "it is unclear whether they are just hard to reach or don't exist," The Post said. As a whole, they have no official candidate slates, have not rallied behind any particular national leader, have little money on hand, and remain ambivalent about their goals and the political process in general. Now that's done laptop to laptop so like-minded people can get together, even if they do not actually get together. "We're not wanting to be a third party," said Matt Ney, 55, the owner of a Pilates studio and a founder of the Pearland Tea Party Patriots in Pearland, Tex. We have groups that I know are 15,000 people, and I have groups that I know are five people."
– The Tea Party is mad as hell and ... that's about it, writes Richard Cohen in the Washington Post. Beyond anger, the Tea Party "has no leader. It has no address, no phone, and no Washington headquarters. It is everywhere and nowhere." When a Post posse tried to track down 2,300 local tea-drinking groups, it could verify only 647. Cohen writes that "the Tea Party exists in the vapors," bound only by anger and the Internet. The latter eliminates the middleman—"in this case an actual political party, which was once called the organization because it actually organized." "Now that's done laptop to laptop so like-minded people can get together, even if they do not actually get together." This creates an "asymmetrical," impossible-to-nail-down enemy for Obama, but it's an enemy who is seeking change—which is exactly what pushed Obama into the presidency. "The Tea Party is here to stay if only because the Internet is here to stay. But its emotions and its grievances can be co-opted, engulfed, absorbed and made part of the engine of change that Obama himself once both personified and promised. As I recall, the original Tea Party was open to anyone. All you needed for admittance was anger."