Tea Partiers Call Movement Better Organized Than GOP

Using a dozen social networking sites to mobilize constituents opposed to big-government spending, the grassroots movement has taken on issues far beyond taxes to protest President Obama's sweeping agenda. And by all appearances, its efforts have not gone unnoticed.

They claim to be a grassroots movement, but critics call them astro-turf. In either case, the Tea Party movement is quickly shaking off its "greenness" to become a force that some coalition members contend is more effective than the Republican Party.

Tea Partiers got their start last fall as a disorganized bunch of disaffected voters who were furious about the Bush administration's Wall Street bailout. Then, Steinhauser said, these opponents of excessive government spending were pushed over the edge by President Obama's call for a $787 billion stimulus.

Using a dozen social networking sites to mobilize constituents opposed to big-government spending, the movement took root in February after a group of individuals used Twitter to react to CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli's "rant," in which he accused the government of "promoting bad behavior" in regard to the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan, and raised the idea of a "Chicago Tea Party."

Since then, the movement has taken on issues far beyond taxes and spending, and has found it is able to mobilize mass responses in short order.