CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Steele appeases Tea Party activists in lengthy meeting « - Blogs from CNN.com

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Steele appeases Tea Party activists in lengthy meeting « - Blogs from CNN.com: "Washington (CNN) – An uneasy truce may have been reached between the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party after Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele spent nearly four hours Tuesday trying to calm the fears of Tea Party leaders who worry that the GOP is out to co-opt their grassroots energy ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.

Steele met with about 50 Tea Party leaders from grassroots organizations around the country in a lengthy bull session at the Capitol Hill Club, a cushy Republican meeting-spot located next to RNC headquarters.

The closed-door event, organized several weeks ago, was originally scheduled to last for one hour. But participants said the confab lasted well into the evening after the RNC chairman vowed to answer every question put forth by the activists who made the trip to Washington.

Participants said their primary goal was simply 'to be heard' by the party establishment and to make clear to Steele that Tea Party activists want the national party to stay out of local races. Steele, they said, listened graciously throughout the meeting and promised to keep the lines of communication open.

'We believe in this meeting that we were heard,' said Karin Hoffman of D.C. Works For Us, a Tea Party organization in South Florida. 'It's the beginning of a relationship.'

But Hoffman, who initiated the sit-down, cautioned that the Tea Party movement is an autonomous grassroots movement and will not 'be absorbed into the RNC.'"