There was once an effort to counter the effect of conservative talk radio by launching a liberal talk radio net work, Air America.

It failed.

Now there is an effort to counter the Tea Party movement with the progressive alternative- The Coffee Party.

It too is failing.

Beside the total lack of any originality the reasons are similar. Both conservative talk radio and the Tea Party were  bottom up movements.  There was no top GOP official that made a decision to solicit political converts via AM radio, and there was no GOP elite who designed and launched the Tea Party movement.  What frustrated the media, the Democrats, and the Republican establishment was that there was no leadership structure.  Nobody know who to hold accountable for the movement.

Yet is spite of some failures the Tea Party exercised considerable influence on the outcome of the 2010 elections, still with nobody in charge.

The Coffee Party is doomed to fail because it is beginning with an organized elitist directive, a board and an organization that is already quarrelling before they have accomplished anything.  There is no groundswell support for the Coffee Party because it is already represented by the Democratic Party.  In fact I can detect hardly any difference between the Coffee Party and the Democrats.

The Tea Party formed because they found a large group who felt unrepresented by the Democrats and many Republicans, but felt that the Republicans was close enough to merit using them as a base.  This made them far more successful than creating a third party.

Read more about the implosion of the Coffee Party at Politico in The Coffee Party and It’s Discontents by Ben Smith.

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