The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party movement of 2009-2010 changed the Republican Party. The “Grand Old Party” acquired the nickname “Grand Old Tea Party,” with “GOP” changed to “GOTP.”
 
“Grand Old Tea Party” was used by at least April 14, 2009 and was popularized by a Salon.com article in November 2009 (“Get ready for the Grand Old Tea Party takeover”). The initials “GOTP” have been cited in print since at least November 3, 2009.
 
     
YubaNet.com
Grand Old Tea Party
Published on Apr 14, 2009 - 6:32:53 AM
Cartoon
By: RJ Matson
 
Half Empty
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Grand Old Tea Party
April 15th is not my favorite day of the year. It’s usually a day that I find myself in line at the post office making sure that my mail has an April 15th postmark.
   
Salon.com
Monday, Nov 2, 2009 19:03 ET
Get ready for the Grand Old Tea Party takeover
The loony wing of the Republican Party prepares for a big day in Tuesday’s elections
By Mike Madden
WASHINGTON—The whole thing may have started with a rainy April rally in Washington’s Lafayette Park. But by the time the first wave of elections since President Obama took office are over, Tuesday could wind up being the day the Tea Party movement left the fringe and went mainstream. (Or at least mainstream-ish.)
       
Chicago Tribune - “Change of Subject” by Eric Zorn
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Meet the new GOP
(...)
COMMENTS
I will see your George Hutchins as representative of the “New GOP” and play Jeremiah Wright as the new face of all Democrats. When you can show me mainstream GOP endorsement of George Hutchins as the “New GOP”, I will give your snarfing some due. For now, give it a rest.
 
ZORN REPLY—Jeremiah Wright ain’t running for office nor will youfind him with a web site saying anything like this (most of the quotes of his are cherry picked from old sermons). Explain the HUGE disparity in polling between north and south when it comes to Obama… there are a lot of GOTP (grand old tea party) members down there who are still bitter about 1964.
Posted by: David | Tuesday, November 03, 2009 at 10:03 AM
 
Blue Indiana (Link no longer active.—B.P.)
GOTP Update: Mourdock, Sodrel hang with Hitler signs
by: Thomas
Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 21:01:43 PM EST
For those curious on the latest going-ons in the Indiana GOP GOTP—that’s Grand Old Tea Party—here’s a report from the Ninth District.
 
Guambat Stew
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Grand Old Tea Party, bloody oath
Republicans Move Towards Right-Wing Loyalty Oath
   
Providence (RI) Journal
Will R.I. Republicans become Grand Old Tea Party?
7:00 AM Mon, Jan 18, 2010
By Steve Peoples
Journal State House Bureau
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Lacking a formal party structure of their own, Tea Party activists in Rhode Island and elsewhere—despite consistent pledges of non-partisan status—have set their sights on the Republican establishment.
   
Contract from America
WEEKLY STANDARD: Grand Old Tea Party – The insurgents meet the insiders.
February 22, 2010
By Mary Katharine Ham
It was a good week for proclamations, with Washington conservative leaders, tea party activists, and the GOP all touting statements of principle as thousands of conservatives came to town for the annual CPAC conference. The GOP’s statement has yet to be released, but each group’s intentions have nonetheless been scrutinized and parsed by the media in what feels like a political version of the eHarmony compatibility test.
 
CBS News - Political Hotsheet
April 12, 2010 3:32 PM
Can Republicans Forge a Grand Old Tea Party?
Posted by Brian Montopoli
NEW ORLEANS - Even at a conference for the Republican establishment attended by potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates, everybody, it seems, wants to be a Tea Partier.
 
At least that was the case in New Orleans, where the big-name speakers at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference were none too eager to embrace the “R” word: They were conservatives first, they insisted, beholden to no party, interested not in the Grand Old Party’s past but its Tea Party-infused future.