Rick Santelli is a business journalist. He works for the CNBC on the Chicago board of trade floor. He is better know for his ‘rant’ which sparked the flame that now fires up the Tea Party; he is considered the ‘godfather’ of the Tea Party movement, and is ever so proud of it.
Despite being credited with firing up its passion, Santelli is not actively involved in the Tea Party and has kept more or less out of the discussions that have raged around the controversial movement. However he considers it his proudest moment, when, on February 19, 2009 he let loose in a 2-minute rant in which he rebuked the Obama administration for the bailout of “losers” during the housing crisis.
"I struck a nerve that people felt so strongly. If the tea parties happened because I threw a match into a tinderbox, then I am proud I did it." Santelli told newspaper The Guardian. "Challenging leaders is as American as it gets. The unique thing about our country is that we don't get behind politicians, politicians get behind us."
His speech was a direct-to-camera affair, and was less than a month after Obama was sworn in as President. The line "We're thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July,” at the end of the diatribe is what inspired the Tea Party name. The “rant” soon went viral and was picked up by lobby group FreedomWorks, which circulated the clip and set up a website dedicated to the rant called IamWithRick.com.
