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Are the Main Street Tea Party members getting "played" by Wall Street and big-corporate billionaires? There is a big, big, big difference between what the regular members and the big-money funders expect. If Tea Party candidates get elected will they do what their supporters want, or what their Wall Street and big-corporation funders demand?

What Tea Party Members Want

I just finished a week driving around Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia attending and writing about the "Keep It Made In America" Town Hall meetings. At these meetings and on the road I had occasion to talk to self-identified members of "Tea Party" groups. My conversations tell me, and polling confirms, that the regular day-to-day Tea Party supporters want government to stop job outsourcing and help American manufacturers. And even more than that they really don't like trade agreements like NAFTA. In fact some go so far as to say that NAFTA and the WTO violate our country's sovereignty. And even more than that they hate Bush's bailout of Wall Street (but have been told Obama did it).

What Tea Party Funders Want

At the same time I saw and heard ad after ad after ad after ad that backed Tea Party-type candidates, that were paid for by the Chamber of Commerce and other front groups for Wall Street and the big multinational monopolist corporations that live off of "free trade" and have been closing factories and outsourcing jobs. And the Tea Party was originally set up by and is largely funded and maintained by front groups for this same crowd.

Here is just one example of how much the Tea Party is funded by these front groups: In Oregon one Wall Street hedge fund manager is spending up to $1 million (pocket change) on a front group to elect a Tea Party candidate and unseat a Congressman who didn't do his bidding and sponsored a couple of Wall Street reform bills. Do you think the Main Street Tea Party members in Oregon expect their Tea Party candidate to support or oppose measures that further enrich Wall Street hedge fund managers? I'll give you three guesses and the answers are Main Street, Main Street and Not Wall Street. Do you think the Tea Party candidate will dare? I'll give you one guess.

Will Tea Party Members Or Funders Win Out?

So the regular Tea Party people hate NAFTA and "free trade" agreement, Wall Street bailouts, want a stop to job outsourcing and want help for American manufacturing -- but the people behind them and funding their ads do not. What will happen if these candidates get into office? Will they stick with their Tea Party supporters from Main Street, or will the be beholden to the big-money behind their campaigns? As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

This is a very, very serious problem. The "crowd" instincts of regular people are usually pretty good and even in the Tea Parties they understand the damage that "free trade," Wall Street, big-corporate interests and the rest of the "free enterprise" crowd have done to the country. But the big money is steering them away from the solutions that their collective gut tells them are right.

Serious Consequences

The financial crisis that Obama inherited has not really gone away. The unsustainable trade deficit that has been growing since Reagan is draining our economy. The huge budget deficit that Bush left behind -- caused by tax cuts and military spending increases -- has not gone away. Global warming has certainly not gone away. All of these problems are still there. We may be headed into a trade war, we need to rebalance the global economy, the rest of the world is jumping on the Green Industrial Revolution and we are not -- but we can't even begin to have a reasonable conversation about it because the entrenched wealthy interests are able to purchase the megaphone, microphone and amplification system that let's people hear the arguments.

I say yes, the Main Street supporters of the Tea Party are getting played. What I want to know is, what will they do if the Tea Party candidates get elected, and then support "free trade' and Wall Street and all of that? Will go even further to the right, or will they start to figure it out?

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