The Tea Party has no leader. It has no address, no phone and no Washington headquarters. It is everywhere and nowhere. For Barack Obama, the Tea Party is the quintessential asymmetrical enemy, much like the Taliban in Afghanistan. The president stands a chance of losing on both fronts. 
 
 The Post set up a posse and went in search of the Tea Party. Of the 2,300 local groups claimed by one Tea Party organization, The Post could verify or reach only 647. As for the rest, "it is unclear whether they are just hard to reach or don't exist," The Post said. Most of the known groups back no candidate, have no platform, raise little money and are not exactly sure of what they stand for. This is pretty close to what Will Rogers said of his own political allegiance: "I am not a member of any organized party. I am a Democrat." 
 
 The difference between being an early-20th-century Democrat and an early-21st-century Tea Party member is the Internet. With it, the middleman is eliminated -- in this case an actual political party, Republican or Democratic, 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. The Tea Party exists in the vapors. For Obama, it's a refutation of what Joe Louis said before his 1941 bout with Billy Conn: "He can run, but he can't hide." The Tea Party can do both. 
 
 As a result, the vexed Obama has been swinging wildly, punching at ghosts. He has tried elevating the colorless John Boehner as a worthy opponent, but his face is as unrecognizable as his name is unpronounceable. Obama tried to make the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Public Enemy No. 1, but to most Americans the chamber is a group of guys in short-sleeve shirts and clip-on ties who sponsor the July 4 parade. He has tried going after Big Business and Evil Finance, but they are where the jobs are -- or used to be -- and while they are both more or less disliked, the message is mixed. 
 
 Obama is stuck in the classic dilemma of asymmetrical warfare: Who and where is the enemy? In Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus carrots-and-sticks the Taliban -- battling them while also inviting them to peace talks. The strategy might work and, if it does, Obama might wonder why he did not do something similar. "Why should he be negotiating with the Taliban and not with the Tea Party?" the Democratic political consultant Douglas E. Schoen asked me. 
 
 The Post's survey of the Tea Party movement suggests Schoen is on to something. Despite a repellent stream of racism in the Tea Party ranks -- The Post found that 11 percent of the Tea Party members said that Obama's race, religion or ethnic background was either "very important" or "somewhat important" for the movement -- the overriding emotion is anger. Anger is ugly to behold, but it is both understandable and widespread. Who besides the odd walrus was not angered by the bridge to nowhere? Who is not angry about earmarks and exorbitant government pensions and lousy roads and awful schools and taxes that seem too high -- in other words a political system in dire need of reform? 
 
 The desire for change -- an emotion one step short of anger -- was what propelled Obama into the White House. As the Tea Party gained attention, he could have made common cause with it -- not on social issues, of course, but these are not as important as economic ones. 
 
 Those and a general distrust of government are what motivate most Tea Party members, The Post discovered. Their allegiance to any political party is minimal. Obama, with almost no political record, might have made inroads with these people. Instead, he managed to become the personification of Big Government -- not just with his programs (necessary though they might be) but with his persona and isolation in the White House. He banned lobbyists but managed to transform himself into the biggest one of all. He blew it. 
 
 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. 
 
 cohenr@washpost.com ||||| In an unruly, unpredictable and chaotic election year, no group has asserted its presence and demanded to be heard more forcefully than the tea party. The grass-roots movement that was spawned with a rant has gone on to upend the existing political order, reshaping the debate in Washington, defeating a number of prominent lawmakers and elevating a fresh cast of conservative stars. 
 
 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. 
 
 The results come from a months-long effort by The Post to contact every tea party group in the nation, an unprecedented attempt to understand the network of individuals and organizations at the heart of the nascent movement. 
 
 Seventy percent of the grass-roots groups said they have not participated in any political campaigning this year. 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. 
 
 "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're not wanting to endorse individual candidates ever. What we're trying to do is be activists by pushing a conservative idea." 
 
 The group, with 25 active members, meets to discuss policies and listen to speakers, Ney said. "We provide opportunities for like-minded people to get together," he said. 
 
 The local groups stand in contrast to - and, in their minds, apart from - a handful of large national groups that claim the tea party label. Most of those outfits, including FreedomWorks and Tea Party Express, are headed by longtime political players who have used their resources and know-how to help elect a number of candidates. 
 
 The findings suggest that the breadth of the tea party may be inflated. The Atlanta-based Tea Party Patriots, for example, says it has a listing of more than 2,300 local groups, but The Post was unable to identify anywhere near that many, despite help from the organization and independent research. 
 
 In all, The Post identified more than 1,400 possible groups and was able to verify and reach 647 of them. Each answered a lengthy questionnaire about their beliefs, members and goals. The Post tried calling the others as many as six times. It is unclear whether they are just hard to reach or don't exist. 
 
 Mark Meckler, a founding member of the Tea Party Patriots, said: "When a group lists themselves on our Web site, that's a group. That group could be one person, it could be 10 people, it could come in and out of existence - we don't know. We have groups that I know are 15,000 people, and I have groups that I know are five people." 
 
 '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. In fact, few saw themselves as part of a coordinated effort. 
 
 The most common responses were concerns about spending and limiting the size of government, but together those were named by less than half the groups. Social issues, such as same-sex marriage and abortion rights, did not register as concerns. ||||| Harvard professor: Tea party, 99 Percent must unify against Wall St. abuses 
 
 By Stephen C. Webster 
 
 Wednesday, October 19, 2011 10:02 EDT 
 
 Even as many in the partisan media attempt to embrace or shun the 99 Percent movement, there is another, quieter voice that’s rising, urging unity to fight the greed on Wall Street — and if polls are any indicator, that voice has already found deep sympathy with a great many Americans. 
 
 Speaking to a crowd gathered for “Occupy D.C.” this week, Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig touched upon that small but rising tide, which says and says again that the tea party is also part of the 99 Percent. 
 
 “What is inspiring about this movement is its potential… to rally our country around an idea that we all believe fundamentally: this government is corrupt,” he said. 
 
 Pointing to the need to constantly raise funds for a member of Congress or a political party to maintain their power, Lessig called out the system of campaign finance as plain, open-air corruption, giving America’s elite enough say-so over Congress that they could even ensure a member is booted from office if they don’t go along with the agenda of wealth. 
 
 “That is terrifying,” Lessig said. “[2008] is the first time in American history where we have seen a collapse followed by no fundamental re-regulation of the financial services sector, because they have the power to block change from either the Democrats and Republicans.” 
 
 “They hold this country hostage because of that power, because of that corruption,” he continued. 
 
 He went on to recall a time he went to a tea party conference, only to hear legitimately angry, homespun grassroots activists talk about this very problem in the same manner as the “Occupy” groups, who he said should put aside what they believe as far as gay rights or abortion or other social wedge issues. 
 
 “You can build this movement to unite America around this idea that the time for crony capitalism must come to an end,” Lessig said. “There is no one on the left or the right who defends the system of crony capitalism, they just practice it. And you, the movement you’ve begun, can begin the recognition across America of why and how we need to end that corruption. You do that by framing this in a way that they can hear you, and inviting them in to your conversation by explicitly bringing them in.” 
 
 Lessig is not the only public figure to make this very connection: financial blogger Karl Denninger, a co-founder of the tea party movement, has come out in support of the “Occupy” protests, and even President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have admitted similarities between the movements. 
 
 The recent polling shows the beginning of a trend here as well. The conservative-leaning National Journal found in a poll published this morning that the vast majority of Americans — about two-thirds — have heard about the protests against Wall Street, and nearly 60 percent agree with them. Crucially, that figure includes at least one-third of Republicans. 
 
 Prior polls have also found that the 99 Percent movement is already more popular than the tea party and has an even higher approval rating than President Obama himself, even as more and more Democrats and labor unions rush to endorse the movement. But much like Republican organizations rushing to endorse the original tea party movement, trying to absorb the anger into the already-existing Washington structures, Democratic groups are following suit for the same simple reason: so they don’t lose their members. 
 
 “I don’t think there’s any danger of this movement being co-opted by MoveOn.org — which is a reprehensible organization — or the Democratic Party, or anyone else, or the teamsters,” explained Pulitzer-winning reporter Chris Hedges during Saturday’s protest in New York City. “The fact is, you’ve done what they have not done, which is fight back. And because you’ve fought back, they’ve been exposed for who they are, I.E. the leaders of these groups. That’s why they’re running to you and attempting to restore what little credibility they have left.” 
 
 To overcome the chasm of left-versus-right, Lessig had simple advice: Approach conservatives “with respect, without challenging their integrity, without requiring they agree with you on all the important issues that we agree about, and by openly and explicitly saying ‘come here, party with us, let’s talk about the future of America.’” 
 
 This video was published to YouTube on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. 
 
 Stephen C. Webster Stephen C. Webster is the senior editor of Raw Story, and is based out of Austin, Texas. He previously worked as the associate editor of The Lone Star Iconoclast in Crawford, Texas, where he covered state politics and the peace movement’s resurgence at the start of the Iraq war. Webster has also contributed to publications such as True/Slant, Austin Monthly, The Dallas Business Journal, The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Weekly, The News Connection and others. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenCWebster.
– 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."