Did the Tea Parties Succeed?

Chris Cillizza has a post on how effective the tea parties were. His site, The Fix, asked for comments. The post drew over 500 comments, which ran the gamut from lucid and insightful to Unabomber-esque rants.

Some of the good comments:

"If the goal of the tea parties was to have a forum for middle-aged white people to gather in relatively small numbers to hold up anti-Obama signage, then yes, it was a success."
--JohninMpls

"The tea parties were successful in rallying and energizing a defeated party base. However the tea parties also finished the redefinition of the Republican base that began in the 2008 elections. The Republican base has moved even further to the right whereas the last election shows the country has moved more to the left."
--peteywheatstraw

"The 'bought and paid for' tea bag parties just demonstrated how ignorant a small group of hard core right wing conservatives are. Those with the gold made the rules and these dupes followed. Their arguments and signs made no sense."
--saami

Source: The Fix