“Tea party” on The Daily Caller

DENVER (AP) — Long skeptical of Mitt Romney, tea party activists are either warming up to the GOP presidential front-runner or reluctantly backing him after abandoning hope of finding a nominee they like better. (more)

When it comes to picking a Republican nominee for president, there is little consensus among tea partiers in Nevada, the next state to hold a nominating contest. (more)

On Tuesday’s broadcast of Washington, D.C. radio station WMAL’s “Morning Majority,” MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews denied applying a double standard to his treatment of the tea party and “Occupy” movements. He also claimed he never saw hate-speech protest signs directed at former President George W. Bush — only at President Obama. (more)

On the online “Green Room” segment of Sunday’s “This Week” on ABC, conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham speculated that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s strength in the contest is a sign that the tea party might not be as strong as conventional wisdom suggests. (more)

Florida tea partiers would be most enthusiastic if former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum or former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich* won the Republican presidential nomination, according to a straw poll conducted Sunday night by the Tea Party Patriots organization. (more)

Sen. Rand Paul has said that Newt Gingrich “goes against everything the tea party stands for.” This might be an understatement. (more)

The assistant Democratic leader, South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, accused former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich of “appealing” to the racist tea party “element” of the Republican Party in his campaign. Gingrich won the South Carolina Republican presidential primary on Saturday. (more)

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The Daily Caller has learned that 100 tea party leaders from 25 states will announce Thursday that they are supporting Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and will form a coalition called Tea Partiers With Newt. (more)

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The top strategist for the Tea Party Express told The Daily Caller that the organization isn’t quite ready to endorse a candidate in the presidential election, but admitted that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich seems to have the most buzz among tea party activists heading into South Carolina’s primary. (more)

With the second session of the 112th “tea party” Congress about to begin, let’s recall how the first session opened a year ago — with members reading the Constitution aloud for the first time in history. Could it be, tea party folks imagined, that Congress might at last begin restoring constitutionally limited government? A year later — after battles over the budget the previous Congress hadn’t passed, over raising the debt ceiling, and finally over the FY 2012 budget, following the collapse of the misbegotten super-committee — the session ended barely before Christmas with the payroll tax debacle, the House caving to the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll tax “holiday.” So inconsequential was that ending that it made April’s 2011 budget compromise, more than six months into the fiscal year, look positively grand, even though it cut “baseline” spending from a $3.6 trillion budget by a mere $38 billion. Tea party folks in and out of Congress are today dispirited. They shouldn’t be, not if they’re in for the long haul, which is what it’ll take. (more)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday in a rare television interview that his Republican counterparts in the Senate are guilty of “obstructionism on steroids” and that the tea party is slowly “dying out.” (more)

Felony gun charges have been dropped against Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler, who on Thursday agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct and pay a fine. (more)

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., speaking in New Hampshire this morning, reminded her audience of the tragic Tucson shooting last year — and also insinuated that the Tea Party, which she said regards political opponents as “the enemy,” has enhanced divisiveness in Congress and had something to do with the shooting, at least indirectly. (more)

After a recent meeting of the Greenville Tea Party in South Carolina, supporters of GOP presidential candidates Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum handed out fliers and made themselves available to answer questions about their candidates, according to two people in the room. (more)

One year has elapsed since a brooding psychopath named Jared Lee Loughner killed six people in Tucson, Arizona and injured 18 others. His intended target, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, suffered major injuries but survived the shooting. Her presence at a memorial this weekend demonstrated that although the healing process is a long and difficult one, she is recovering. (more)

The Iowa Republican caucuses turnout numbers were slightly higher in 2012 than they were in 2008. However, without a Democratic presidential caucus to compete with, some are asking why the turnout numbers weren’t significantly higher.  The suggestion is that the enthusiasm for the field is lacking. (more)

A half-hour after the Iowa caucuses got underway Tuesday night, Des Moines Register reporter Jason Noble caught an unusual indicator of how little support Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann enjoys in the Hawkeye State. (more)

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Organizers of a tea party convention scheduled to convene next month in Myrtle Beach are fending off accusations that they called for “armed guards” with concealed weapons permits to staff the event. A senior leader of one tea party group in the Palmetto State raised concern about heat-packing patriots amid a flurry of email backlash after supporters of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann announced their intention to hold a straw poll at the event to promote their candidate. (more)

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney hasn’t always been best friends with the tea party, but on Sunday the presidential candidate made his pitch to the conservative activists in the movement with just more than two weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses. (more)

“Dude, where’s my job?” is one of the slogans one finds scrawled on signs held by disheveled young protesters at Occupy events. (more)