The fears of Tea Party organizers that liberal crashers would "infiltrate" Tea Party events around the country on Thursday appear to have been overblown.
As Politico's Ken Vogel reported on Friday, "Activists and organizers interviewed by Politico said the mischief was nowhere near as widespread or disruptive as they feared earlier in the week."
In the aftermath of the Tax Day rallies, Tea Party advocates offered mixed reactions to the threat of liberal crashers ruining their rallies. FreedwomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon told Vogel that the hype "turned out to be really much ado about nothing."
Dave Weigel at the Washington Post relays a conversation that he and Vogel shared with conservative Andrew Breitbart on the matter of liberal crashers after the day had winded down:
After the rally, Sarlin, Ken Vogel and I chatted with Andrew Breitbart, who'd only just heard of the crashers and lumped them in with "the left's" strategy to discredit tea partyers as racists.
"They needed it so badly," said Breitbart, "they wanted it so badly, that when they didn't get it they doubled down on their idiocy. It's not unlike the ACORN situation. They kept doubling down on their idiocy."
According to Tea Party icon and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, liberal attempts to infiltrate the conservative movement will ultimately fail "because any time something weird happens at a tea party gathering, they can say well say 'well, hey, there's the left for you.'"
Though the so-called "crashers" did not show up in force on Thursday, Tea Party groups had made preparations just in case -- and will likely do so at future events.
Conservative activist group Freedomworks posted this warning on its website in advance of the big day:
We know that infiltrators might be coming to our tea parties. But remember last April 15th; the idea that the tea parties would be infiltrated in the same way was all over the news. The results? Virtually no infiltration. We know they might be coming, and they know we know. And they know we are ready.