With Sean Hannity being forced by Fox top brass to cancel the live airing of his show from the Cincinnati Tea Party yesterday, we are given a new look into the Tea Party. I touched on it last night, but decided it really deserves it’s own space on the blog.

When it was announced to the crowd of around 10,000 last night that Sean Hannity wouldn’t be appearing, this is what happened:

Several people in the audience shouted “refund!”

[SNIP]

The Tea Party reported about $77,500 in ticket sales. It had budgeted $70,200 in expenses for the event, including security and other costs, officials said. However, there will also likely be extra costs, as the group said in a news release late Thursday that it would honor requests for refunds. It said an e-mail address to request a refund would be set up within 48 hours.

I thought the whole purpose of the tea party rallies was to protest “big government”? Aren’t they there to “denounce runaway spending by Washington”? That means these people should be happy to be there regardless of who is speaking.

Don’t these people understand capitalism? Tickets for the event ranged from $5 to $20 dollars, with all proceeds going to the Cincinnati Tea Party. This would be money to help organize future fund raisers and events, and is something that any political party or movement must do. It takes money to organize large events like this.

There have been a couple times in my life where I have attended Democratic fundraisers, which were supposed to have a big name keynote speaker, only to find out that person had something come up and couldn’t make the appearance. In one case the ticket cost $100. Did all those Democrats start demanding refunds for it? Absolutely not. We realize that the money is still needed to support our party. That’s something the Tea Party people don’t seem to understand.

What happened in Cincinnati last night really got me thinking more about the Tea Party and their “big rallies”. It seems like every one of these rallies that turn out some big numbers also turn out some big headliners. Take the Boston rally this week, where Sarah Palin was the headliner. What if Palin wasn’t there? My guess is that the rally would have seen a much smaller turn out, and possibly to the point that those of us outside the Boston area wouldn’t have even known about it.

So we need to really ask ourselves is these people are showing up to support the movement and oppose “big government” or are they there just to see famous people? Perhaps it’s a combination of both. Yeah these people oppose big government, but to get them to spring into action they need that carrot dangled in front of them – a carrot in the form of a celebrity. If that’s the case then they might be in trouble in November. I don’t think the Tea Party can generate enough celebrities to cover every polling place in the country and without that motivation, the tea party gang might not be motivated to load up the Hoveround and wheel on in to vote.