Could we please stop talking about these people like they are a real political party?
The are no (T-?) representatives.
The Tea Party
is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009. It endorses reduced government spending, opposition to taxation in varying degrees, reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit, and adherence to an originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution.
TPM is a movement, nothing more. Please look at all of these individuals and tell me which ones were elected to office on a non-Republican ticket.
Tea Partiers are Ultra Conservative Republicans (ULCeRS). All kidding aside. The are Ultra Conservatives. The are not a party and yet the media treats them as one (by interviewing these reps and calling them Tea Party). The two main parties have spent many years and much gold to build to where they are now. Yet the media seems to believe that if you slap a new coat of lipstick on an old pig, then you can call it whatever you want.
We need to get away from calling them "Tea Party" representatives. These people were elected as Republicans, with Republican money and machine backing, and Republican votes. If we continue to refer to them as "Tea Party", that allows the Republican caucus to dissavow them. Yet if we call them Ultra Conservative Republicans, it hangs whatever stupidity that they have come up with around the Republican caucus' neck.
Please push the media to stop referring to them as the Tea Party, until such time as they are an official party (validated in all 50 states, with a national convention). Until then, they are nothing more than the non-trunk end.
Besides, it will drive Fox News crazy after having spent so much time on the narrative.