Coffee Party Founder Calls for Friendlier Process

At first glance, the Coffee Party might seem like just a reaction against the Tea Party movement, and it did start that way. Founder Annabel Park recalls ranting against the "disproportionately effective " effort, saying, “We should just start our own party, call it the Coffee Party or the Smoothie Party—anything but Tea.” But her party has moved beyond that, she tells FiveThirtyEight.com: It's now about fostering a cooperative, responsive government.

“I think the Tea Party people in a way are responding to the same frustration,” she says, “which is dysfunction in our government.” The difference is that they seem to see the government as evil, while the Coffee Party sees it as “the only apparatus we have for collective decision-making.” Ultimately, the Coffee Party wants to reform the system, ending “this paradigm of politics as a football game." Says Park: "That’s not a democracy.” (More Coffee Party stories.)