Rick Santelli: Campaign Meme?

More

During campaign season, when the political microscope is turned to high power, anything mildly outrageous can be a theme for a day. Could CNBC's Rick Santelli be one of those themes for the GOP?

Two websites and a petition have sprung up since Santelli's now widely publicized on-air rant yesterday, in a pit of traders on the floor at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, against President Obama's $75 billion plan to help struggling homeowners refinance, all in favor of Santelli's proposal for a Chicago Tea Party in July.

"We're thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that wanna show up to Lake Michigan, I'm organizing," Santelli fumed yesterday. "We're gonna be dumping in some derivative securities, what do you think about that?"

Turns out Santelli may not be the one organizing after all: the conservative American Free Market Fund's American Future Fund's petition, launched yesterday afternoon, invites signers to attend such a party in Chicago in July. 3,500 people have pledged to attend, the group says, and the idea of busing people in has been floated. That's on top of two smaller sites dedicated to promoting Santelli's suggestion.

"The Chicago Tea Party of 2009 will reinvigorate that American and Patriotic spirit; one that demands respect for individual rights and property," one of the sites, www.reteaparty.com, promises.

Conservative outcry over Obama's economic policies appears to be real. Prominent blogger Michelle Malkin has promoted several small protests against the stimulus, drawing 500 protesters (by her estimate) in Denver on the day Obama signed it. Only 28 percent of Republicans supported Obama's stimulus according to Gallup, and 61 percent oppose his mortgage plan according to Rasmussen. The tops of all three network newscasts last night made mention of Santelli or related objections, and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) -- one of three Republicans in Congress to vote for the stimulus -- was jeered by protesters for the vote yesterday at a press conference in his home state.

Santelli's complaint has several built-in elements of a marketing plan: a catch phrase, an upcoming event, and an easily distributable video. If this were October, politicians would be all over the Chicago Tea Party already. Depending on how the mortgage plan continues to be received by the public (45 percent oppose the idea while 38 percent support it, according to Rasmussen), the political world may not have heard the last of Rick Santelli.

Jump to comments

Chris Good is a political reporter for ABC News. He was previously an associate editor at The Atlantic and a reporter for The Hill.

Get Today's Top Stories in Your Inbox (preview)


Elsewhere on the web

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register. blog comments powered by Disqus

Video

Miami: The Next Big Start-Up City?

How the city became a center for innovation

Video

Video

A Brief History of Romantic Comedies

From The Atlantic's Chris Orr

Video

Life in 'the New Arctic'

A moving portrait of a fading landscape

Video

Video

The Rise of New York City

A fascinating look at Manhattan in the 1940s

Video

What Is Methane Hydrate?

"Flaming ice" is a vast natural energy source

Video

NASA's Time-Lapse of the Sun

Now with epic dubstep music

Video

Shaken Not Tuned: Cocktail Experiments

Can a tuning fork improve a cocktail?

Video

Video

Is He Cheating? A 1950s Guide

'That little blonde secretary from the office?’

Video

New Yorkers: Vintage Vacuum-Tube Amps

Risking electric shock to restore old amplifiers

Video

The DIY Piano-Bicycle

Everybody needs a hobby

Writers

Up
Down

More in Politics

In Focus

Photos of Tornado Damage in Moore, Oklahoma

Just In