Remembering the Ron Paul Revolution of 2007.
The Ron Paul Revolution (October 2007)
The ground-zero event that founded the Tea Party was the registration of the domain TeaParty07.com on October 24, 2007, by supporters of Ron Paul’s first presidential campaign. Here is archive.org’s snapshot of the site on November 13, 2007 displaying the famous original curled flyer:
Twelve days after the site registration came Guy Fawkes Night on November 5, 2007, when Paul supporters set off the first “money bomb,” a campaign fundraiser which (for Internet fundraising) raked in a record $4.3 million. Then on December 16, 2007, came the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Paul supporters in Boston re-enacted the dumping of tea into Boston Harbor and a newcomer to politics, ophthalmologist Rand Paul, spoke at Faneuil Hall. A second money bomb set off on this commemoration of the Tea Party raised over $6 million, shattering the previous record set 41 days earlier.
What was this schism on the American Right about? It was a rebellion against the Republican Party’s wars (in particular, the twin disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq), its drunken-sailor federal spending (e.g., a $500 billion unfunded expansion of Medicare for a new prescription drug program), and its burgeoning post-9/11 federal spy and police state (for example, the Patriot Act signed into law on October 26, 2001).
