Tea party movement flexes political muscle

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- The tea party movement is flexing its muscle through political action committees and other measures to shake up politics, movement leaders said.

The movement, which disrupted summer town halls on healthcare reform and forced a moderate Republican to pull out of a special election, is eyeing the 2010 elections by directing money and support to conservative candidates challenging Democrats and Republicans, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The grassroots conservative movement takes its name as homage to the Boston Tea Party from the American Revolution.

"It's time to take control," conservative activist Eric Odom said on the Web site of his political action committee, Liberty First PAC.

Odom, a key organizer of the first tea party protests, told the Post his PAC won't support incumbents of either party.

In Washington, FreedomWorks, which also helped organize tea party protests, plans to borrow from President Barack Obama's fundraising playbook by reorganizing and honing in on small donations, the group President Matt Kibbe said.

"We're looking at the potential of raising small checks from a vast number of donors, just as Obama did," Kibbe said. "We've been studying everything about the Obama primary strategy, and I happen to think the tea party movement could make even the Obama grassroots machine look obsolete."

Movement leaders must consider the realities of politics, some Republicans said.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the GOP must "temper our conservative approach with pragmatism" when selecting candidates, particularly after a conservative-backed candidate ran as a third-party challenger in a New York race, forcing the moderate, state party-backed candidate to drop out.