"Coffee Party" Actually Much Mellower Than "Tea Party"

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A new movement called the "Coffee Party" is getting underway as a left-leaning response to the amorphous, anti-tax Tea Party. It's gained momentum with the help of a popular Facebook page, and kicked off with live events in about 370 cities last Saturday. From the official Coffee Party Flickr page, it looks like the gatherings were calm, and attendees were largely unarmed.The Christian Science Monitor has more on the movement's ethos:

Tea partyers tend to berate the federal government as a whole (or most of it). Coffee partyers seem to be more in favor of government involvement – as in envisioning a greater role for government in the future of healthcare – but denounce the "corporatocracy" that holds sway in Washington. While asserting to be independent, coffee party activists tend to back President Obama and want "obstructionists" in Congress and the media to get out of his way.

Whatever your opinion about these movements and their specific ideas, they do seem to represent a revived spirit of civic engagement, and that's good.They also seem to share a dissatisfaction with the narrow range of views expressed in Washington. Tea Partiers want more people like Palin and Paul, and Coffee Partiers probably want more politicians like Kucinich who won't bend on issues like the public option. Maybe we just need more political parties, and some kind of proportional representation system to make them viable.