The TEA Party movement began as a visceral response to the out of control spending in our nation’s Capitol.  Rallies were held around the United States and people vented their frustrations in a peaceful demonstration of “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”.  Signs were made, meeting and rallies were attended, “instant TEA” protests held and all culminated in the summer of discontent during the August recess of Congress.

However, while these rallies and events served to develop a sense of group outrage and a way in which the conservative values of millions of Americans could be demonstrated, the subsequent “what next” questions began to be asked.

It was clear that the MSM was not going to cover these events or even the movement.  The over one million people who marched on Washington were ignored and even Obama stated that he didn’t know that a rally was going on as he jetted off to his healthcare rally in Minnesota.  Up until this time, most people were content with their collective expression of anger and frustration.  No matter that they were ignored!  The political pundits believed that this too shall pass and given enough time, the TEA Party movement would collapse of its own emotional exhaustion.

However, early in the formation of The Memphis TEA Party, it was apparent to this author that the emotion engendered in these early activities needed to be met with a clear call to action if we were indeed going to make a difference in the body politic.  To be sure, there were those in the movement who believed that the TEA Party had to be about keeping our “grass roots” orientation with no formal political affiliation.  This fact resulted in some splintering of groups, even here in Memphis.

Nonetheless, our view was that in order for the TEA Party movement to be effective, it had to express the collective power of its membership in conjunction with the emotional energy that was being generated through rallies and other events.  There were also calls to remain politically neutral to ensure that the movement wouldn’t be tainted by supporting one particular party or another.  And while I agree with the notion of not becoming a subsidiary of the Republican Party, I also believe that, just like the old bank robber – you go where the money is, and that is where most of the conservative constituents and representatives reside.

In this context, The Memphis TEA Party recognized the need to create a PAC and so we formed The Memphis TEA Party PAC for purposes of developing candidates and supporting them through the primary election cycle through to their hoped for election to local, state and national offices.  We launched a twice weekly radio show, Memphis TEA Party Live! For God & Country on the local AM station, KWAM990.  In conjunction with this directed effort, we also began to formulate a strategy around the establishment of a Conservative Precinct Leadership organization that would be run by The Memphis TEA Party and therefore beholding not to any actual party organization.  This overall approach would allow us to raise money, develop exploratory committees, recruit candidates and get out the vote during the election cycles.  And while we would support various national efforts, such as the NY23 Congressional race with Hoffman, our focus would be on localism.

Our first efforts were to support a state representative candidate in his primary election here in TN for the TN District 83 special election.  This position opened up after the incumbent, Brian Kelsey, decided to run for State Senator to replace the incumbent who had resigned in disgrace.  Mark White, a solid conservative, small business owner who had always lived in the district and who I had the opportunity to meet through our TEA Party efforts, was contending against John Pellicciotti in the Republican primary.

In order to assist Mark, we had him on our radio show, Memphis TEA Party Live! For God & Country, to do morning and evening interviews, supported his fund raising activity and participated in his calling campaigns and GOTV initiatives.  In the end, Mark won the primary by 300 votes and will contend for the general election on January 12, 2010 against the Democrat candidate.  The district is heavily Republican and Mark should be able to win with the party and the TEA Party’s help.  When asked about our involvement, Mark White stated, "It has been said that all politics is local.  The strength of this nation has always been the individual in every community across our great country.  The Tea Party Movement represents Grassroots politics at the local level.  If we are ever to change the giant bureaucracy that Big government has given us it will be that "We The People" join together community by community and stand firm for the freedoms that our Constitution has given us." 

Mark White is a perfect example of how the TEA Party movement can make a difference from the primary election cycle through to the general election and drive the change it seeks.  To be sure, we do not believe that The Memphis TEA Party PAC was solely responsible for his election; however, we amplified his own campaign efforts and those of the Republican party throughout the primary cycle achieving our goal of electing Mark White.

So where do we go from here?  First, we will help Mark White in the general election.  Next, The Memphis TEA Party PAC has formed an exploratory committee to present a candidate to run in a largely Democratic, black district against the incumbent, Congressman Steve Cohen.  We will be announcing her candidacy as we move along the vetting and exploratory process.  And of course, we have the 2010 election cycle which includes our Shelby County mayoral race, the county commissioner races, sheriff and other elected positions that we will be engaged in helping candidates who reflect our conservative values and orientation towards fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility.

In the end, we believe that the TEA Party movement must focus itself on taking back the levers of power through candidate development, support and elections.  There is no success in a third party movement.  Our goal should be to establish PACs, collaborate across states, regions and nationally, but be focused on our own local elections to groom the future candidates for national office.  The Memphis TEA Party is focused on bringing to bear the emotion, energy, ingenuity and conservative values of its membership in meeting the challenges of our nation and those who would represent us!