--- title: President Obama Tangles Democratic Message On The Tea Party description: The Democratic National Committee sends out dozens of messages a week to make the case that the Tea Party crowd is kooky. One of their... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7189732/president-obama-tangles-democratic-message-on-the-tea-party/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2010-09-20T20:45:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-18T09:34:26.083Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Obama Tangles Democratic Message On The Tea Party og:description: The Democratic National Committee sends out dozens of messages a week to make the case that the Tea Party crowd is kooky. One of their... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7189732/president-obama-tangles-democratic-message-on-the-tea-party/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Obama Tangles Democratic Message On The Tea Party twitter:description: The Democratic National Committee sends out dozens of messages a week to make the case that the Tea Party crowd is kooky. One of their... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Politics](/section/politics/) # President Obama Tangles Democratic Message On The Tea Party by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Sep 20, 2010 8:45 PM UTC by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Sep 20, 2010 8:45 PM UTC The Democratic National Committee sends out dozens of messages a week to make the case that the Tea Party crowd is kooky. One of their recent videos [posted on YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/user/DemRapidResponse#p/u/12/pCdh2qFl7JI) ended with the words “The Republican Tea Party 2010; Imagine These People Could Represent You.” But today, President Obama was asked about the Tea Party, and his response was a bit, shall we say, off the DNC message. --- > “” --- Far from calling it kooky, Obama was describing the Tea Party as part of a noble tradition–albeit one that still had not developed a clear policy agenda. And it appears that Obama has been thinking along the same lines as former President Bill Clinton, who said on [CBS’s Face The Nation](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/19/ftn/main6881548.shtml) that the tea party might yet turn out to be a bad thing for Democrats. --- > “” --- This is the great unknown question of the Tea Party. Will it continue to spread into the political center, as a vehicle for channeling broadly held frustrations and anger into political power, or will it be relegated to the fringes of the Republican Party, while the furies find other modes of expression? The answer will probably not be clear until well into the 2012 campaign season. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7189732/president-obama-tangles-democratic-message-on-the-tea-party/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7189732/president-obama-tangles-democratic-message-on-the-tea-party/"},"headline":"President Obama Tangles Democratic Message On The Tea Party","datePublished":"2010-09-20T20:45:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-18T09:34:26.083Z","description":"The Democratic National Committee sends out dozens of messages a week to make the case that the Tea Party crowd is kooky. One of their...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7189732/president-obama-tangles-democratic-message-on-the-tea-party/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7189732/president-obama-tangles-democratic-message-on-the-tea-party/","name":"President Obama Tangles Democratic Message On The Tea Party"}}]}] ```