On September 12, 2010 in Washington, D.C.,  FreedomWorks sponsored its second annual 9/12 rally, based on the theme of “Remember in November.” Among the speakers were FreedomWorks’ Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe (go here for Reason.tv’s interview with them about their best-selling Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto); former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson (go here for an interview about his Our America initiative); “Tito the Builder,” a Colombian immigrant and contractor who is an outspoken defender of free enterprise; Deneen Borelli of Project 21 and Tom Borelli of the Free Enterprise Project; and new media impresario Andrew Breitbart of Big Government.

This year’s event drew a smaller but arguably more intense crowd than last year’s demonstration. Attendees’ attitudes toward President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress were sharply negative and sometimes strayed from the Tea Party’s traditionally narrow focus on curbing federal spending to issues such as illegal immigration and race relations. Yet there was no mistaking the main thrust of the day’s event, which was, as Matt Kibbe stressed, that “November 3 is even more important than November 2.” As Andrew Breitbart put it, “The beauty of the Tea Party movement is watching it hold Republicans accountable…These people are not going to stop holding their government and elected officials accountable, especially those that claim to represent their values.”

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is the latest victim of the Tea Party insurgency that’s trying to take over the Republican Party. Tea Party favorite Joe Miller defeated Murkowski in The North Star State’s primary by hammering away at (among other things) her support for TARP and lack of zeal for overturning Obamacare.

Miller joins a new breed of anti-spending candidates such as Maine’s Paul LePage, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, Florida’s Marco Rubio, and South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, who promise to bring a new passion for shrinking government to D.C. and state capitals.

Here’s how Freedom Works’ Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe sum up what the Tea Party stands for in their new book, Give us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto: “It doesn’t take a lot of words to say that we just want to be free. Free to lead our lives as we please, so long as we don’t infringe on the same freedom of others.”

Armey and Kibbe say that the Tea Party coheres around spending and that other issues are not central to its mission. Perhaps. Joe Miller is also pro-life, pro border fence, and wants to outlaw the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research. Maine gubernatorial hopeful LePage believes the “traditional definition of marriage should be preserved.” Haley, who will probably be South Carolina’s next governor, has campaigned on tough enforcement against illegal immigrants. And the closest thing to a Tea Party spokesperson is Sarah Palin, the former “Bridge to Nowhere” supporter who oversaw a 16 percent increase in spending during her time as governor of Alaska.

Can this coalition stay together, stick to its anti-spending message, and actually change American politics? Or will it be co-opted by the very party upon which it seeks to perform a “hostile takeover?”

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In our new book, Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and I discuss the fundamental problems with assuming that public officials have our best interests at heart.

Excerpt from Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto:

The Tea Party movement adds a welcome addition to the fundamental debate over the size and scope of government: grassroots activists armed with the intellectual arguments they need to make a difference in political debates, not just scholarly discussions. What is happening is a dramatic increase in the physical infrastructure and on-the-ground personal politicking that can turn ideas into action. The new generation of limited government scholars, and the internet, provides an even wider audience for good ideas. But unlike earlier generations, the new generation as the muscle to make things happen in the political arena.

While standing for the right ideas and values is vitally important, it is naive to think that politicians will do the right thing simply because a proposed polict will benefit the general citizenry, creating the conditions for economic opportunity and individual prosperity for all. That’s simply not how things work.If there was doubt about the proposition before, today it is painfully obvious that politicians in power often act in their own self-interest at the expense of the “public interest”.

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Despite what Congress and the current administration would have the people believe, the inconvenient truth is that fiscal conservatives are the dead center of American politics. Amidst accusations of extremism, Americans are responding to a message of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and less taxation. In a recent interview, FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey said this:

“This is the broad center of American politics. Look at the polling data, Right now, the Tea Party polls higher than the Republicans and the Democrats, and it is becoming increasingly clear to the electorate out there and they’re expressing their understanding… we have a Democrat majority in Congress and a President that’s on the liberal fringe, and we are in the center.”

Despite differing messages on various social agendas and battles over the role of government in our everyday lives, most Americans understand the necessity of fiscal responsibility – which is even more apparent in the midst of a struggling economy. As the government battles “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and takes on country-altering legislation in the form of Cap and Trade and the Health Care reform bill, unemployment sky rockets and Congress raises the debt ceiling yet again.

Americans are concerned with jobs. They are concerned with Federal spending. The President’s State of the Union proposal to place a spending freeze on an already swollen base line is not convincing them – only 9% believe that it will reduce the deficit significantly.

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