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Cult Watch Title: Tea partiers get audience with RNC chairman but not a shared public stage Tea partiers get audience with RNC chairman but not a shared public stage Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele treated tea party leaders like an ugly date Tuesday afternoon: They were good enough to take upstairs, but not good enough to be seen with in public. Steele invited leaders of the conservative movement over to the GOP's Capitol Hill headquarters (to the adjacent National Republican Club, technically) for a private meeting on the third floor. But Republican leaders, probably wary of TV footage showing a tea party takeover of RNC headquarters, denied the activists' request to use the facility for the news conference they had planned for afterward. "They wouldn't allow it," said Karin Hoffman, the grass-roots activist who organized the meeting. The tea partiers were out in the cold -- 21 degrees with the wind chill, to be exact. They held their news conference, sans Steele, on the sidewalk across from the Capitol South Metro entrance. "You guys are all frozen," Hoffman observed as she greeted the shivering camera crews and reporters after her session. The meeting itself, she said, was "healthy," if not conclusive. "It's the beginning of a relationship." A long-distance one, if Steele's absence was any indication. The moment encapsulated well the Republican Party's dilemma as it tries to harness the considerable energy of the tea party movement. Steele's task is essentially to co-opt its leaders, keeping them from electoral challenges that could hurt the GOP's chances. Yet at the same time, he can't appear to the rest of the country to be embracing a movement known for extremist words and deeds. Not since Victorian times has an afternoon tea been fraught with as many etiquette considerations as Steele's session with the tea party activists. First, there were the manners for anybody enjoying high tea to keep in mind. Would they remember to hold the cup handle with their fingers -- don't loop your fingers through the handle! -- and tilt the pinkie slightly up for balance? Would they remember to introduce the milk to the tea from south to north, not stirring it in a circular motion? On top of all this, layered like jam atop a buttered scone, was another protocol concern: Would Steele be able to woo the tea party leaders without giving them an all-out endorsement? The RNC solved the pinkie-raising problem by serving, in addition to the tea, soft drinks and cookies. The second set of problems won't be settled quite so easily. Asked by reporters whether they were all leaving the meeting as loyal Republicans, the tea party activists answered with shouts of "No! No! . . . Loyal Americans! . . . Citizens! . . . Conservatives!" "This is not where the solutions lie," reported Lisa Miller, a Washington area activist who left the meeting early. Miller, a Republican, said that "right now I am disappointed with my own party." By the end of her brief statement to the press, she was shaking from the cold. Highlighting the stakes, Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston issued a bulletin Tuesday saying that the Tea Party of Nevada was serious about fielding a third-party candidate in that state's Senate race this year. That could divide conservative voters, allowing embattled Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) to sneak to reelection. In his inimitable style, Steele tried to identify with the tea party movement in a radio interview last month. "Guess what? I'm a Tea Partier, I'm a town haller, I'm a grass-roots-er," he said. Steele a tea partier? Maybe in the high-tea-at-Claridge's sense. He's a natty dresser with monogrammed shirts and French cuffs. But the tea party activists are more of a low-tea crowd, so their appearance at the National Republican Club, also known as the Capitol Hill Club, was a bit out of character. The club is a place for Oysters Rockefeller and pictures of Eisenhower, not tricorn hats and Don't-Tread-on-Me flags. Gentlemen are asked to wear coats and collared shirts. "Current trends dictate the acceptability of ladies' high-fashion attire," the club rules state. The 50 activists arrived at 3:45 p.m. for a meeting that was scheduled to last an hour. But Steele promised to take all questions, and the activists had plenty; the session lasted four hours. "Sometimes it was contentious, sometimes it was pleasant," said Tom Altman of Pennsylvania after the meeting finally ended. The main achievement to come out of the meeting: "We were heard," Altman said. Hoffman, standing with fellow activists under the Capitol Hill Club's green awning, repeated the point. "The whole desire of this meeting was that we'd be heard," she said. Heard, but not seen. By the time they emerged, just before 8 p.m., they had missed any chance of having their visit to the RNC on the network newscasts. That probably didn't disappoint Chairman Steele one bit.
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#1. To: Skip Intro (#0)
I wonder exactly what "extremist words and deeds" those would be - since the fishwrap didn't elaborate. More evidence as to why the media continues to swirl down the toilet
Day after day, Steele played them as country bumpkins and you blame the media?
Only a asshat like Milbank could misreport like this.
my anti groupie can't get through life without me.
I couldn't care less what Steele did. Whatever he does re: Tea partiers is on him and the GOP. But if he slights them (as he appears wont to do) - he does so at his own peril. His funeral, not mine. My point with the media is this - it's a ginned up, bullshit story. If he'd shared the stage with them, it would have been "GOP taken over by Tea party" The way it was, it was "GOP slights Tea Party. Is there anything lazier than a Wapo Reporter?
Day after day, Sure, an Alaska welfare recipient.
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