Coffee Party takes on the Tea Party in US

LONDON - The Coffee Party has emerged on the US political scene to take on the populist conservative Tea Party movement - and it has already attracted 300,000 followers on Facebook.

The new party has only one candidate, Jeff Reed. He is competing in Missouri’s 9th district in next week’s midterm elections, the Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday.

Compared to the Coffee Party, the Tea Party groups back 139 candidates for the House of Representatives.

The Coffee Party’s founder says they have attracted over 300,000 followers on Facebook.

“I was so tired of the Tea Party and I wanted to say what I thought,” said 41-year-old Annabel Park who launched the idea on the networking website early in the year.

“It’s definitely a reaction of ordinary people to the Tea Party, because in all the newspapers and the media you read that the Tea Party says they are the real America. But the way they’re trying to make changes is dangerous,” she was quoted as saying.

In sharp contrast to the anti-Washington tone of the larger movement, the Coffee Party is of the opinion that “the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will”, the media report said.

Sixtyfive-year-old Gregg Reynolds, while speaking at a recent party meeting in Woodbridge, Virginia, said that the Coffee Party would one day become a political heavyweight.

He, however, quickly added: “I don’t see that happening in my lifetime.”