For decades, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has been a barometer of the different political tendencies inside the right-wing. In the 1980s, Reagan administration officials and Reaganite New Rightists dominated the podium.  Pres. Reagan spoke at CPAC in both 1984 and 1988.  In the 1990s, culture warriors like Pat Buchanan and the Rev. Pat Robertson joined Republican regulars such as Sens. Bob Dole and Phil Gramm. At this years’ CPAC13, Tea Party leaders and Tea Party-supported politicians will dominate the proceedings.  The result is an agenda filled with bigots, conspiracy mongers, and publicity hounds.

Day of Resistance Gun Rallies Stoke Tea Party Movement

Racism Remains an Issue

By Devin Burghart

At gun ranges, in park gazebos, at VFW halls, on city sidewalks and parking lots, and on the steps of state capitol buildings, the Tea Party driven gun rallies of February 23 succeeded in mobilizing dormant parts of the Tea Party base and attracting some new faces.

A Response to David Welch in The New York Times.

It is IREHR’s policy to use this website for new data-driven research and analysis, not as a place to regurgitate newspaper headlines or use it as a debate-centered discussion forum.  Nevertheless, an opinion piece in the December 4, 2012 New York Times by David Welch, which called for William Buckley-like figures to marginalize the Tea Party movement and push it outside the bounds of conservative respectability, bears a thoughtful response. Indeed, Welch offers a well-considered, if ultimately wrong, strategy for reducing the Tea Parties to “pariah” status.

This section of the Special Report compiles opinion polling data, documents significant examples of racist vitriol on the part of Tea Party leaders, shows incidents where well-known anti-Semites and white supremacists have been given a platform by Tea Partiers, and analyzes the attempt by white nationalist organizations to find new recruits in Tea Party ranks.

FreedomWorks has a John Birch Society problem.

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A year ago, Pam Stout, a soft-spoken 67 year-old retiree from Bonners Ferry, Idaho was featured in the New York Times and asked to appear on the David Letterman show. She performed swimmingly, and portrayed the Tea Party as a wholesome movement of Middle Americans concerned about issues like TARP and health care reform.

An inside look at a recent Tea Party event organized by Stout shows a very different side of the Tea Parties, and highlights a disturbing direction taken by many local groups.