Tea Party | featured news

The rancor that defined much of the last week on the Republican presidential campaign trail subsided a bit here on Saturday night, as Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain basked in each other’s company and the warm embrace of the Texas Tea Party for what was styled as an old-fashioned issues-focused debate.

What to make of Occupy Wall Street: ignore it as silly excess or embrace the movement? celebrate the energy or ridicule the process? fear the consequences or welcome the possibilities? No easy answers, except for the wrong ones. What can be said is that how you respond at this still early stage depends on how ...

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to spread—with massive arrests Monday night in Boston—the tea party wants you to know that the progressive protests have nothing in common with its own grass-roots effort.

Rasmussen Reports returns from the field with what I think is the first poll about Occupy Wall Street. The buried lede: At the moment, the protesters who've been mocked on CNN and Fox News, accused of class warfare by Mitt Romney, and handled delicately by the White House, have... decent favorable ratings.

Obama senior adviser David Plouffe accuses 30 Tea Party members in Congress of controlling the debate — whether over deficit reduction, taxes or more immediate items like funding for the government and disaster relief — both set to run out this week.'Fox News Sunday' Transcript: Plouffe Defends Obama's Deficit-Reduction PlanFull Coverage:

Tea Party supporters walk past a sign of Sarah Palin during the Tea Party of America's "Restoring America" event at the Indianola Balloon Festival Grounds September 3, 2011 in Indianola, Iowa.

Aided by strong tea party support, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has surged in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, pushing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney into second place and significantly diminishing the once-rising star of Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts told supporters that the gap between the Tea Party and traditional Republicans was not as wide as many people seem to believe.

Bulling its way into 2012, the tea party is shaping the race for the GOP presidential nomination as candidates parrot the movement's language and promote its agenda while jostling to win its favor.

Mitt Romney appears to be trying to block Rick Perry's attempt to claim the Tea Party candidate mantle.