The Humble Origins of the Tea Parties

Berry Laker, arguably the most enthusiastic of the Tea Partiers in Wisconsin, has a post up praising the "Father of the Modern Day Tea Party" and reminding us all of the "movement's" humble origins.

The Tea Parties are powerful statements made by grassroots activists who are tired of government doing stuff. They represent the little guy, Main Street, apple pie and so forth, etc. And just as Jesus Christ was born in a manger, so too did the Tea Parties spring to life from humble origins.

As Laker reminds his readers, the Modern Tea Party was originally the brain child of one Rick Santelli, an Average Joe who was once Vice President of Interest Rate Futures and Options at the Chicago trading firm of Drexel Burnham and Lambert. Santelli, when he is not clipping coupons and balancing his checkbook at the kitchen table, appears over a dozen times a day on the financial cable news station of record where he has an open forum to say whatever the hell is on his mind and reach hundreds of thousands of the most important financial movers and shakers in the world -- just like the rest of us! So it was fitting that Santelli delivered his now famous "rant" on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where just like the employees of every mom-and-pop small business in Middle America, he punches his time sheet like every other scrappy American working to make a living.

You've come a long way, baby!