Bill Clinton: Democrats Should Listen to Tea Party, Too

Republicans aren’t the only ones who have come to realize the power of tea party activists. Former President Bill Clinton says the Democrats ignore the movement at their own peril, Politico reports. “There are a lot of real people in this tea party movement that are saying something everyone should hear — which is, ‘Seems like everyone but average Americans are doing all right here. The people that caused the financial crisis are all back in great shape,’” Clinton said in a joint interview with Yahoo and the Huffington Post released during the weekend.

At the same time, the former president believes that tea party activists are going too far. “The problem is that if you look at the financial energy behind the tea party movement, it’s not about restricting abuse of big public and private power,” Clinton said.

“It’s about destroying the role of government in our life so that private centers of power will be untrammeled, and I don’t think that’s good for average Americans.”