Dallas Tea Party’s Phillip Dennis Distances From Those Trying to “Co-Opt” Movement

Back in December, we ran a Q&A with Phillip Dennis, founder of the Dallas Tea Party and an adviser to the National Tea Party Coalition. You’ll find it here. But today, Dennis gets a much bigger platform: CNN’s Web site, to which he’s contributed an op-ed headlined “Politicians such as Palin aren’t the real Tea Party.”

Dennis writes that he’d like to set the record straight concerning those who are out “spreading the Tea Party message of fiscal responsibility, the rule of law and national sovereignty to their friends and neighbors,” and politicians like Sarah Palin, who take big paychecks to speak at mega-events but “leave little lasting substance, and their words are quickly forgotten.” He calls ’em “tea turfers.”