WHAT I HAVE NOTICED ABOUT THE TEA PARTY

They have been cajoled, ridiculed and aspersed.

They have been called "radical," wingnuts and racist.

They are the people of the Tea Party.

I've not said a lot about the Tea Party (except to show a few pictures and videos). I've done a lot of research about the Tea Party, though, and what follows is what I have found.

1. They are, for the most part, citizens of the United States (I qualify that because one can't tell just by looking.)

2. They are of every stripe: white, black. Latino, Asian and many others.

3. They are from every walk of life: doctors, farmers, the debonair and "hicks" (in the real sense of the word), old and young.

4. They are of all education levels: college educated, high school drop-outs, high school graduates, self-educated and uneducated.

5. They are sometimes articulate, sometimes not.

6. They have people who lead, but no specific leaders.

7. They are, for the most part, local people from locations not too far from where they are meeting, with almost nobody bussed in except by buses individual groups charter on their own for national events.

8. They are extremely polite to one another and to "outsiders..." far more polite than those who attend liberal/progressive gatherings.

9. They are clean. The grounds are cleaned by the participants themselves, leaving more than a few city/county crews with only sprucing up to do. (At the meeting I went to here in Ft. Myers, the garbage cans were filled and Centenial Park was almost pristine.)

10. They have an absolute right, indeed a responsibility, to be involved in local, state and national politics.

The Tea Party movement is a true grass roots movement because it is most often locally formed, locally organized and locally engaged.

The Tea Party is autonomous. Nobody tells them what to do, what to say, where to go, how to perform, or when to meet. They are not guided by Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Palin or any other talk-show host or political leader.

In fact, it more often works the other way around. The Tea Party members express themselves and those in conservative talk media and conservative politicians take their cues from them.

The Tea Party members are dyed-in-the-wool, hard-core, main-stream Americans with a message to Washington DC:

We've had enough of your antics, indiscretions, and unethical behavior.

We've had enough of your lack of integrity and dishonesty.

We've had enough of you calling right wrong and wrong right.

We've had enough of your trying to redefine America.

We've had enough of your usurping of our freedoms and we've had enough of your pork.

Plus, we've had enough of your confiscating our money in the form of high taxes and your unending demonstration that you do not know how to spend it either frugaly or wisely.

Whether you like that message or not, that IS the message of the Tea Party movement.

In the current political and economic climate, it would do any politician, incumbent, newcomer or hopeful to pay attention and act accordingly.

If you are a politician just entering the Washington DC fray, you had beter get up there and do what you said you were going to do, or you will be a one termer.

If you are a fake conservative (also known as a RINO), you might or not be gone this November, but you will not last...we will weed you out if you don't change your ways.

This is your last chance; make the best of it...for the people, not for yourself.