Coffee Party USA

For those who have become frustrated over the popularity of the Tea Party and everything it stands for and, most of the time, doesn't stand for, Annabel Park of Silver Spring, Maryland has created an alternative.

Coffee Party USA was founded on principles of getting together to start a conversation in order to get involved and work with government to get things done.

This ideology is the opposite of what the Tea Party, as the Tea Party would rather abandon government than attempt to accomplish goals by working with it.

According to the official Coffee Party USA website the mission statement is as follows: "The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them."

Park and the Coffee Party have been all over the media lately, Park has been on CNN and there have been articles about the movement in the Washington Post, New York Times, and even the British news outlet the Guardian.

The views of Coffee Party USA are definitely left-of-center and actually started in response to being annoyed and fed up with the antics of the Tea Party using Facebook. In just over a month, the official Facebook fan page for the Coffee Party has gained over 91,000 fans.

I look forward to the Coffee Party being a media game-changer in terms of how much attention is given to the Tea Party and what surrounds it than actual parties and actual policy. Of course the definition of news is "unusual" and there's nothing more unusual than the Tea Party.

Still, I hope that the Coffee Party starts to bring parity back to the political newsroom.