Northwest Tea Party - Rampant Right Wing Populism

Today a New York Times article features Keli Carender, a nose pierced, improv theater performing Seattlite who is now being credited as one of the founders of the Tea Party movement against the health care bill and any other type of non-military state spending. Carender, who evidently read a few Ayn Rand books and was inspired to drop the traditionally leftist liberal attachments between the arts and government, was taken aback at the question 'how to cut the deficit without cutting Medicaid and Medicare.' Her response was “Well,” she said, thinking for a long time and then sighing. “Let’s see. Some days I’m very Randian. I feel like there shouldn’t be any of those programs, that it should all be charitable organizations. Sometimes I think, well, maybe it really should be just state, and there should be no federal part in it at all. I bounce around in my solutions to the problem.”
As of now Keli Carender has held rallies in Seattle and Olympia, and has been flown into Washington D.C. to discuss this latest movement with Republican Party representatives. While its doubtful that this movement will effect the passing of the incredibly weak Health Care bill in the Congress, it might gain some traction as the next election comes around the corner.
The full article can be read at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28keli.html