Tea Party Patriots Leader Quits; Florida Leader Says He Sounded Like Obama

Mark Meckler, a founder of the national Tea Party Patriots, resigned this week -- and some Florida tea partiers are saying good riddance.

Meckler's resignation as national coordinator was accepted by the TPP board following "months of discussions and good-faith differences on how best TPP can serve the Tea Party movement," the organization said in a statement Friday.

"He felt it necessary to step aside and pursue other endeavors. We extend our best wishes to him. He has done many good things for the movement," said TPP, which claims 3,400 locally organized chapters and more than 15 million supporters nationwide.

But some rank-and-file tea activists weren't so congenial about the parting.

"It's a shame, but not a shame that Mark resigned," said Billie Tucker, head of the independent First Coast Tea Party, based in Jacksonville. "I think he should have done it a long time ago."

Meckler, in his resignation statement, expressed concern over financial dealings between TPP and outside political organizations.

But Tucker said Meckler's rationales "remind me of Barack Obama -- 'It's Bush's fault.'"

"This is a sad day for the tea party movement in America," Tucker said. "Tea Party Patriots started out as a grassroots organization where people could find their local tea party group in their city. It then morphed into a top-down organization with a handful of grassroots organizers who got a little greedy."