Big Tent Tea Party

Just as this race shattered the conventional view of Massachusetts, it wrecked the stereotypes the media have built about the Tea Party movement. Liberal outlets focus on a few fringe figures at tea parties so far-left wing-nuts like the serpentine Keith Olbermann can sneer "tea bagger" to try to marginalize the movement.

Yet it is a cause energized by millions who adhere to the country's founding ideas of limited government. Its critics paint the movement as exclusionary, yet it embraced Brown despite his moderate pro-choice stance because they share fundamental political and economic principles.

Jack Higgins cartoon.

More. Taxes, terrorism and the Massachusetts upset

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