"Indoctrinated" was probably not the best word to use around the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) on Sunday.
The group excoriated the newcomers for attending a meet-and-greet at the Capitol Hill Club organized by a handful of freshmen and the Claremont Institute instead of their own event at the Ronald Reagan Building downtown. And that was to say nothing of a third forum, also at the Reagan Building, conducted by the Constitutional Congress. The Constitutional Congress brought over retiring Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) to chat with the freshmen about their legislative priorities. DeMint challenged the newbies not to just be "rhetorical gadflies" but to work on "real legislation."
A wise Congressman told me years ago that they don't do a lot in Congress. But when they do it, they do it all at once. Which was exactly what unfolded Sunday afternoon when all three events spilled into one another, to say nothing of the formal orientation session running all day at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel.
In a memo distributed to its members, the TPP took exception to the freshmen ducking their conclave.
"Don't Let them Steal OUR New Members of Congress," thundered a TPP memo obtained by FOX. "They are apparently trying to make sure that instead of sitting with grassroots tea party leaders from around the country, the lobbyists and consultants can sink their claws into the freshmen and begin to ‘teach them' the ways of DC."
Molly Hooper reports that the TPP may not have won new friends:
Competing freshmen lawmaker orientation events over the weekend prompted the Tea Party leaders recently to encourage their followers to bombard newly elected GOP House members with the message that they must attend a Tea Party-sponsored event for local organizers instead of a separate orientation offered at the same time by the conservative Claremont Institute.
But incoming members say they never received an invitation to participate in the Tea Party Patriots event held in the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.
"Nobody received any type of (invitation), it was just 'this is what's happening, please don't go here,' but I'm a big boy and I can choose where I need to go and where I need to be," incoming Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said in an interview on Sunday afternoon before heading into a meeting at the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican unofficial headquarters in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, with members of his freshmen class.
"I didn't know it was happening until I started getting inundated with emails and (messages) filling up my voicemail," West's colleague told The Hill.
One irate incoming member told The Hill that the Tea Party tactic to release personal contact information of the new class was "extremely counterproductive and, in all honesty, an incredible violation of privacy."
It is worth remembering that the tea party movement itself has factions. From a November 3 report in The Daily Caller:
Leaders of the Tea Party Patriots organization declared Tuesday’s election results “a victory for liberty,” but blamed a rival Tea Party organization for Senate losses in Nevada and Delaware, saying the group shouldn’t have intervened in those elections by making endorsements in the primary.
The two organizations have a history of feuding over how involved national groups should be in elections. The Tea Party Patriots organization does not endorse candidates, while the California-based Tea Party Express endorsed numerous candidates this cycle.
