Call it Coffee Party Redux. Before quickly fizzling out the Coffee Party received extreme media hype shorty after its birth last year and now its latter incarnation, No Labels is the recipient of the same kind of treatment in the mainstream media. The similarities don't stop there. Nice Deb at NewsRealBlog has listed the No Labels Declaration and the Coffee Party Mission Statement side by side and as you can see they are virtually identical in their feel good vagueness:
Annabel Park
By P.J. Gladnick | September 27, 2010 | 9:14 AM EDT
Remember all the media hoopla earlier this year surrounding the birth of the liberal alternative to the Tea Party called the Coffee Party which was founded by former Obama political operative, Annabel Park? Well, despite all the promotion of the Coffee Party by the MSM, it has pretty much fizzled out. The extent of its slide into complete insignificance can be measured by the fact that its national convention in Louisville, KY this past weekend registered almost no media coverage. Perhaps even the MSM was embarrassed by the Coffee Party's current obscurity to the extent that its lasting legacy might well be the performance at their convention of the lamest rap song in history.
What little coverage the supposedly 350 people attending the Coffee Party convention received seems to have been pretty much limited to local media such as the Louisville Courier whose article could do little to hide the navel-gazing aspects of this "movement" moving nowhere:
The Coffee Party USA — which was founded on Facebook and is holding its first national convention in Louisville this weekend — bills itself as a more thoughtful and reasoned alternative to the tea party.
Saturday night the organization held a panel discussion, part of its three-day “Restoring American Democracy” convention, that included bloggers, college professors and communications strategists talking about what they can do to make politics more inclusive. They also discussed how to draw more disenfranchised voters back into the democratic process.
By P.J. Gladnick | April 24, 2010 | 7:34 PM EDT
Does anyone out there remember the Coffee Parties?
You can be forgiven if you have forgotten them. They made a brief appearance due to media driven hype over a month ago and then quickly disappeared from view when they inspired a collective yawn from the public. The photo at right shows a typical Coffee Party "rally" from back then. Typical in that few people showed up to protest against private ownership (aka free enterprise). Even the organizer of the Coffee Party non-movement, Annabel Park, seems to have lost her enthusiasm for the cause as evidenced by her Twitter page. After an initial flurry of posts, Park's interest pretty much petered out as you can see.
However, despite the utter failure of the liberal Coffee Parties to counter the popular Tea Parties, the MSM continues to hype them to the point of absolute absurdity. And the latest entry in this category comes from Steve Tuttle of Newsweek with his claim that the Coffee Party now has 200,000 members and that they had 500 meetings one day recently.
Here is Tuttle in the midst of extreme hype mode. Please be prepared to have your BS meters fly off the scale while reading:
By Mike Bates | March 15, 2010 | 3:00 PM EDT
Think that the fledgling Coffee Party movement wants bigger government, more social welfare programs and the higher taxes that inevitably accompany them? Well, think again. On CNN Sunday Morning yesterday, we learned that simply isn't accurate. Anchors T.J. Holmes and Brooke Baldwin set up a report from one Coffee Party:
HOLMES: All right. TEA party might have some competition out there. This time yesterday we were telling you about the national kickoff of a new political movement calling themselves the Coffee party.After a couple of participants at the event identified themselves:
BALDWIN: Well, they were heading out to coffee shops across the country yesterday. And apparently the turnout was pretty strong, but still we are asking, what is this group really about? Who are these people? These coffee drinkers?
CNN's Pat St. Claire (ph) takes a look at why some activists prefer their politics with a jolt of java.
PAT ST. CLAIRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The folks gathered at this Washington coffee house Saturday came for more than just a cup of Joe.
Enter the Coffee party. A new organization that also says it wants smaller government and lower taxes, but builds itself as a more civil alternative to the better known TEA party movement, a group known for it's boisterous rallies.
By Lachlan Markay | March 12, 2010 | 4:39 PM EST 
CNN.com has an article on its website extolling the virtues of the Coffee Party. The glowing language the piece uses to describe the movement stands in stark contrast to the cable network's treatment of Tea Party groups over the past year.
CNN doesn't like the Tea Party movement, that much is clear. The cable network's on-air staff and guests have proclaimed it an "anti-government" group of "recession-raging conservatives" and "wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country." The movement has a "dark undercurrent" and a "racial tinge" and is occasionally lumped in with domestic terrorists and neo-Nazis.
It is plain now that CNN harbors no such ill will towards the Coffee Party, which reporter Jessica Ravitch described as just a bunch of everyday Americans gathering to express their dissatisfaction with the political status quo (gee, that sounds a lot like the Tea Party movement, but I digress).
CNN.com has an article on its website extolling the virtues of the Coffee Party. The glowing language the piece uses to describe the movement stands in stark contrast to the cable network's treatment of Tea Party groups over the past year. CNN doesn't like the Tea Party movement, that much is clear. The cable network's on-air staff and guests have proclaimed it an "anti-government" group of "recession-raging conservatives" and "wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country." The movement has a "dark undercurrent" and a "racial tinge" and is occasionally lumped in with domestic terrorists and neo-Nazis.
It is plain now that CNN harbors no such ill will towards the Coffee Party, which reporter Jessica Ravitch described as just a bunch of everyday Americans gathering to express their dissatisfaction with the political status quo (gee, that sounds a lot like the Tea Party movement, but I digress).
By Matthew Balan | March 3, 2010 | 11:44 AM EST
John Roberts and Kiran Chetry omitted mentioning that Annabel Park, the founder of the so-called Coffee Party, worked as a volunteer for President Barack Obama's presidential campaign, during an interview on Wednesday's American Morning. The anchors also didn't mention Park's past work for the liberal New York Times.
Roberts and Chetry interviewed the Coffee Party USA founder at the bottom of the 8 am Eastern hour. After an initial question about the origin of the name, the two asked about the principles of the nascent movement and if health care "reform" was going to be a major issue for it. In her last question to Park, Chetry did ask if the Coffee Party had any ties to a political party: "[T]he tea party movement really, in some ways, has been a challenge to Republicans to move more toward fiscal conservative ideals. Are you aligned with a party? I mean, as we know, passing health care reform has been a huge goal of liberal Democrats for decades. Are you aligned with the Democrats, trying to get them more to move to the left when it comes to health care?"