'Tea Party' Activists Feel Slighted By GOP

Just when the Republican Party appears poised for big pickups in the 2010 midterm elections, a ragtag band of grass-roots conservatives millions strong and fiercely motivated, but with no national leader, threatens to split the Grand Old Party in two.

Leading figures in the burgeoning "tea party" movement complain they are being ignored by the Republican National Committee, despite having already shown their clout in taking down moderate Republicans in a New York special House race and the Florida Republican Party hierarchy.

"I have called into the RNC many times, and they still haven't called me back," said Dale Robertson, head of TeaParty.org, which he claims has upwards of 7 million members. "I've called them, lots of times. I called them this morning. I called them yesterday. It's like they ignore you as they try to figure out a strategy on how to defeat you."

Several other tea party activists talked of a similar lack of communication, despite an NBC-Wall Street Journal survey last month that just 28 percent of voters had a positive view of Republicans, compared with 35 percent for Democrats and 41 percent who report positive feelings about the tea party movement.

"It's important for Republicans to recognize they can only be a majority if they find a way to absorb the tea party movement and absorb the anger against Washington and against big government," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Washington Times. "That's the only way the Republicans can prosper in the next few years."

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