The folks over at Huckleberries are holding forth on Tea Parties as a result of Sunday’s Spin Control Column on what Democrats and Republicans should learn from last week’s demonstrations.

It’s getting lively, as often happens at Huckleberries.Click here to join in the online conversation.

Inland Northwest Democrats who belittle the Tea Party gatherings of last Wednesday do so at their peril.

Inland Northwest Republicans who embrace them wholeheartedly could be in for a few surprises.

In terms of number of venues and total participants, the demonstrations outstripped any protests in recent history.

The Spokane event may not have been significantly larger than the city’s biggest Iraq War protest in 2003. But even if both attracted between 2,000 and 3,000 people – crowd estimates are extremely difficult and notoriously unreliable, so there’s no sense even debating which had more people – it’s important to remember that Wednesday’s Tea Party in Spokane was one of about a dozen within a two-hour drive.

There may have been another 1,000 over time in Coeur d’Alene’s city park, plus gatherings in Colville and Colfax, Priest River and Moscow. If total numbers count…

You’ve had a chance to read about the “tea parties”. For those who haven’t had enough of the accounts, here are some videos to watch:

O’Reilly on Fox News applauds “robust debate.”

Olberman points out problems with the DC protest.

Santelli, who sort of started the whole thing, “pretty proud of this.”

From the Spokane Convention Center to Coeur d’Alene’s Independence Point to the Codger Pole in Colfax, tax protesters around the Northwest will be gathering Wednesday at TEA Parties.

No plans to serve Orange Pekoe, though.

TEA in this case stands for Taxed Enough Already. It’s a movement fueled in part by talk radio and talking head television, with assists from the Ron Paul wing of the Republican Party, Libertarians and conservatives looking to put the breaks on federal spending to stimulate the economy.

Although organizers like to make reference to the Boston Tea Party, it’s unlikely that there will be much dumping of tea into bodies of water.

“That’s definitely not the plan,” said Gary Edgington, the organizer of the Spokane event, scheduled from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Spokane Convention Center breezeway. He’s hoping there won’t be hundreds or thousands of tea bags tossed in the nearby river that state and local environmental authorities would trace back to…him?

But there will be speech-making…

Inland Northwest Democrats who belittle the Tea Party gatherings of last Wednesday do so at their peril.

Inland Northwest Republicans who embrace them wholeheartedly could be in for a few surprises.

In terms of number of venues and total participants, the demonstrations outstripped any protests in recent history.

The Spokane event may not have been significantly larger than the city’s biggest Iraq War protest in 2003. But even if both attracted between 2,000 and 3,000 people – crowd estimates are extremely difficult and notoriously unreliable, so there’s no sense even debating which had more people – it’s important to remember that Wednesday’s Tea Party in Spokane was one of about a dozen within a two-hour drive.

There may have been another 1,000 over time in Coeur d’Alene’s city park, plus gatherings in Colville and Colfax, Priest River and Moscow. If total numbers count…