You think what’s debatable? Santelli didn’t say he was going to start a Tea Party group in Chicago, and he didn’t reference any pre-existing group. Go to 2 minutes in, he’s talking about dumping derivatives into the river, that sounds like an omage to the Boston Tea Party, and it sounds like he’s proposing a one time event.
Do you know of more material about the beginning of the Tea Party than is referenced in the Wikipedia article? I know I never heard of it before Santelli, and then all of a sudden it was everywhere.
Do you believe the Tea Party protests of 2009 would have happened if McCain had been elected? Maybe roughly the same? I don’t claim to have a knockout case that they wouldn’t have happened, that much I agree is debatable.
What is debatable is whether santelli created the movement or just gave more attention to it. Go to YouTube and look it up for 2007. It is debatable whether that is the same movement. I think I saw video of Austin and Los Angeles rallies.
As for the tea party, I don’t know what would have happened and don’t claim to. I do know that the stimuluses and other faulty economic policies probably would have continued, whether or not that would have been enough to cause protests as massive as 2009 is debatable.