Since Tea Parties began appearing on the national landscape, critics have used the fact that the movement lacked a leader as proof that it should not be taken seriously. We the People do not require a leader or figurehead to impact our country, nor do we want one. The beauty of this movement is that with so many leaders across the country, enemies of grassroots activism are unable to mount the only offensive weapon they have; character assassination and smear campaigns against public figures. From day one, those opposed to tea party ideas have tried to bait our movement into becoming something they could destroy: a top-down group with a visible (and therefore reachable) leader to focus on.

By becoming an organization with leaders and figureheads, we stoop to the level our opponents have been begging us to through their criticism. We have no reason to follow the progressive “leader-knows-best” structure our opposition is trying to push us into. We do not look at our leaderless organization as a design flaw; it is simply structured in a way that makes it impossible to kill.

Fox News is leading the mainstream media in thrusting Sarah Palin up as a leader of a movement that she has neither communicated with nor supported in any direct way. There are those in the Tea Party Patriot movement that work 20 hour days and have poured their life savings into the movement with no salary or speaking fees; should we look to a famous, charming, but uninvolved figurehead who offers to lead without even working with those who have given much more than a speaking fee? While we respect Palin as a conservative politician, we do not need nor want her as a leader. We thank Palin for her efforts to disabuse the notion that she is a Tea Party leader of any kind.

With 15 million leaders working on the ground to abort assaults on the Constitution, progressives don’t know where to direct their attacks. The Democrats didn’t see us coming with Scott Brown, and the Republicans didn’t see us coming with Marco Rubio. The longer they fail to force a leader on the Tea Party movement, the greater the measure of our success.

Mrs. Palin, thank you for clarifying your position as a supporter of a leaderless movement. We didn’t ask for a leader appointed by the mainstream media, and we have no intention of transforming the Tea Party Patriots into a weaker, more vulnerable organization to fit our enemies’ desire of what we should be.