Analysis: Is the tea party brewing a revolution?

— They heeded a pamphleteer's call for "manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny" - the 60 American colonists who stormed Griffin's Wharf and emptied 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. And with that, a revolution brewed.


Not yet.

The Associated Press reviewed tea party operations in almost every state, interviewing dozens of local organizers as well as Democratic and Republican strategists to produce a portrait of the movement to date - and its prospects for tilting this November's elections.

The bottom line:

Though amplifying widespread voter anger at the political establishment, the tea party movement is unlikely to dramatically affect the congressional elections - unless their local affiliates forge alliances with Republican candidates. And how likely is that? Republican operatives look at the possibility of GOP-tea party collaborations with some anxiety, and many tea party activists frankly don't want to see them.

Born of protest and populism, the United States is a nation of movements - people galvanized by causes, summoned with the latest technologies. But none of those causes - not abolition, women's votes, civil rights or anti-war - was certain to succeed in its first fateful steps, or even to leave a lasting mark.


Let's begin with what they're not.


The tea party itself is not a political party - and there are no signs it ever will be.








