January 25 - February 2, 2010: Article Examines Journanlist’s Role as ‘Founding Father’ of Tea Party Movement

US News and World Report reporter Paul Bedard notes that CNBC commentator Rick Santelli is being lauded as a “founding father” of the right-wing “tea party” movement. Santelli is cited in a number of sources, including the recently published A New American Tea Party by former Bush administration official John O’Hara, as having “kicked off” the tea party movement with his “impromptu” rant against the Obama administration’s economic policies on CNBC (see February 19, 2009 and February 27, 2009). Santelli has refused to become a tea party spokesman (see April 2, 2009), but he says, “I still think that all the dynamics that I felt as it was happening are still in place today.” Santelli adds that like many “tea partiers,” he opposes the Obama administration’s health care reform efforts. O’Hara has written, “Santelli was very important” to the tea party movement. Before Santelli’s on-air rant, most Americans had just accepted the Bush and Obama administration claims that they had to bail out Wall Street and Detroit to avert catastrophic failures. “Santelli said what a lot of people were thinking and afraid to say” when he told viewers that “government is promoting bad behavior.” Santelli says: “It’s very gratifying to me that four minutes out of my life made a difference.… It seems to me that any reason for people getting more active in running or taking part in politics and government I think is just terrific.” Santelli says he has repeatedly turned down offers to run for public office in his home state of Illinois. [US News and World Report, 1/25/2010] In an interview shortly after the US News and World Report article is published, Santelli says that he and the “tea parties” share many goals and beliefs. “I feel bad to a certain extent because, even though I may share many of the philosophies of the tea party and many believe I was instrumental in being a catalyst for its formation, I also think that considering what I do for a living—and I take it very seriously—I try to avoid political ties.” He then criticizes the mainstream media for not paying more attention to the tea parties and the economic issues that motivate them, saying: “Most of the mainstream coverage of most of the crisis—the economy, the road to get here, and the tea party—has been very much lacking. The fact that many traditional media avenues that have ignored or belittled the tea parties all of a sudden seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time trying to understand and explain them, I think that alone gives credibility to their girth.” [Daily Caller, 2/2/2010]