The Providence Journal is reporting that rather than launching a third party, Tea Party activists in Rhode Island are just going to take over the existing Republican Party. What's more, the existing Republican establishment has signaled that it welcomes such a move.

From ProJo Politics Blog, Jan. 18:

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.

Local conservatives openly embrace the mission of the National Precinct Alliance, an organization that seeks to take over the Grand Old Party by becoming elected "precinct executives" who endorse candidates.

Rhode Island Tea Party president Colleen Conley says she will attend a Texas conference next week that offers a session devoted to the strategy.

"We want to build a farm team. And that's what this is," she told Political Scene. "It is through the GOP, and clearly we have a lot of independents and libertarians [involved in the Tea Party]. It's just that the GOP here is such a nonentity."

State Republican Party Chairman Giovanni Cicione, himself a self-described "libertarian," according to RH Libertarian Party officials, had this to say:

"I absolutely support the efforts of the Tea Party activists to get their people involved in grassroots Republican politics. We are the only possible home for any reform movement."

Note - the Rhode Island Libertarian Party essentially operates as a subset of the RI GOP. All three RI Libertarian Party Executive Comm. members also serve as local GOP Precinct Committeemen, and two of them ran for the State Legislature as Republicans in 2008.

Photos of RI Tea Partiers at the Capitol in Providence, plus Colleen Conley.