Role in Tea Party’s birth lands him in spotlight

A little more than a week later, O’Hara and some friends had gathered several hundred activists outside the White House to protest the size of government.

The party was on.

“I saw what was going on with the bailouts, beginning in the Bush administration, and I was very frustrated and concerned,’’ said O’Hara, 26. “I didn’t think it made a lot of sense.’’

His affiliation with the Tea Party movement has given him national exposure, including a sparring session with Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.’’

O’Hara has taken an unlikely path to becoming a poster boy and organizer for a conservative movement. He comes from a mixed political home — his father leans slightly to the right, his mother to the left. During his time in Catholic schools in Needham and Boston College High School, he says, he was more concerned with competitive swimming and his jobs at Volante Farms and the Needham Pool and Racquet Club than with national politics, or his failed bids for student council.

It wasn’t until he went to Kenyon College — where students made headlines by waiting hours to vote in 2004, most of them for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry — and began writing for a conservative magazine, the Kenyon Observer, that O’Hara honed the voice he would later use to excoriate liberal commentators like MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

Of his days at the Ohio school, he said, “If you come out a libertarian or a conservative from that sort of environment, you don’t do it without questioning things and having to defend it.’’

Chris Anderson, a friend since middle school, remembers seeing a shift when O’Hara visited him during college.

“Suddenly it was politics twenty-four seven,’’ Anderson said. “We got into a debate with my roommates about tax policy or something that went on for like three hours.’’

After college, O’Hara moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for a leading conservative magazine, the American Spectator, and later the Department of Labor. He said he became even more worried about government overstepping its bounds with the bank bailout at the end of the Bush administration.

O’Hara said his fidelity is to his principles, rather than to a political party, an attitude that he describes as in keeping with a movement that has fielded candidates to run against established Republican politicians.

“One of the things that really started the Tea Party was big government conservatism,’’ O’Hara said. “People elect Republicans, think they can vote, go home, and then all of a sudden they’re shocked and dismayed that they’re running up deficits. People are realizing that you can’t trust these labels.’’

But O’Hara also said he hasn’t given much thought to running for office himself: “I don’t personally have strong desire to do that.’’

In January, O’Hara had his first book published. “A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes’’ tells the story of the movement’s genesis, offers a case for small-government conservatism, and gives tips to would-be rally organizers.

The publicity campaign for the book landed O’Hara on “The Daily Show,’’ where his interview by Stewart included some sharper exchanges.

“We thought he conducted himself well and held up his side of the debate,’’ said O’Hara’s father, also named John.

“It was definitely a little jarring to see him’’ interviewed on national television, said Anderson. “When you look back it’s not surprising. He’s always been a talker. He’s always been chatty.’’

O’Hara said he heard from self-described liberals that his appearance on the show made them want to give the Tea Party a second look.

Some elements of the news and entertainment media, O’Hara said, like to focus on the fringe of the movement — people who question the president’s citizenship, for example, but that’s not what the Tea Party is about.

“If you go to any public gathering, there’s going to be a couple of oddballs. The vast majority of people that go to these events, they’re concerned about the size and role of government,’’ he said.

“Going back to Needham for a graduation party or a New Year’s party, it’s always interesting,’’ he said. “People say, ‘These people at the tea parties say it’s all about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and they’re racist.’ I always say, ‘Which tea party did you go to?’ ‘’

A tip if you run into O’Hara: Don’t offer to buy him a cup of Earl Grey.

“I’m actually a coffee drinker,’’ he admitted.

Globe correspondent Calvin Hennick can be reached at calvinhennick@yahoo.com.