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Stumbling from infancy to toddlerhood, The Coffee Party held more than 350 meetings of local chapters around the United States on Saturday. The BBC reports:
While the Tea Party can claim to have already helped win elections, including the vote for the new Massachusetts Senator, Scott Brown, can the Coffee Party gain the same sway on American politics?
"We’re trying to approach politics differently so it’s hard to compare the level of influence," says Annabel Park. "Changing the political culture is not something you can measure by saying how many elections you’ve won."
But she maintains the coffee party represents the silent majority, who feel angry at politicians but do not want to voice their frustration by adopting the same aggressive and frequently negative tactics the Tea Party has.
"The two-party structure is just not working. There are so many of us who feel these labels are outdated, that we’re much more complex and interconnected. And people are coming to us exhilarated that there’s finally a place for them to have a voice," she says.
Did any Seminal readers attend a Coffee Party meeting? What did you talk about? Did you make any plans for the future? And most importantly, can the Coffee Party make a difference, or is it just a bunch of hot water?
What’s on your mind tonight?
6 Comments
I missed the first one in DC, but will be attending the next I hope.
What’s on my mind is Clarence Thomas’ wife starting a Tea Party “nonprofit” and then her husband voting to give corps the ability to fund that nonprofit totally unfettered.
Corruption, meet conflict of interest…..
Let’s hope they don’t split into the caffeinated and uncaffeinated factions.
Coffee Party, Tea Party……..when’s the Whiskey Party start? Might as well be drunk. Make as much sense as these two parties do.
That might be taken care of by Drinking Liberally, no?
Peter Lawson, spokesperson for the Coffee Party, was on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show on Friday, March 12th, and he said the Coffee Party has no stands or issues, that it was established to provide a means for “civil discourse,” that people would discuss in a civil manner, come to some kind of agreement, then the Coffee Party (who was not mentioned) would brings these agreed upon concerns or issues to “out leaders” for “action.”
I was not very impressed–sounded like weak coffee to me. But, to each his or her own….
The link has audio, 15 minutes; no transcript. WNYC is NYC’s public radio station.