The Place Where Ludington Talks
'Tea Party' members offer a ground-level view
Love them or hate them, the Tea Party is here for the time being. Generally, I think anything that can bring a bit of change to a broken system can't hurt.
By Kathy Kiely and Susan Page, USA TODAY
A year ago, the political hurricane known as the "Tea Party" erupted in made-for-YouTube confrontations at congressional town hall meetings on the pending health care overhaul.
This August, the movement's supporters seem less rowdy — perhaps because they're pounding the pavement and dialing phones, trying to alter the balance of power in Congress in the fall elections. While Tea Party-favored candidates have lost in contests including the California GOP Senate primary, they have won Republican Senate primaries in Colorado, Kentucky, Nevada and Utah.
They say it's just the start.
"We're not in this to make noise and to saber-rattle," says Dan Blanchard of the Louisville Tea Party, which helped Rand Paul claim the Senate nomination in Kentucky. "We're in this thing to win."
The test now: Whether Paul and others can prevail under even tougher scrutiny and win over the broader electorate that votes in November. That will require a sustained commitment from a network that revels in its bottom-up nature and loose organization.
"That's part of the verve and vibrancy," says Rep. Michele Bachmann. At the first meeting of the congressional Tea Party Caucus last month, the Minnesota Republican underscored the primacy of the grass roots by having members of the public sit on the dais normally reserved for members of Congress. Lawmakers sat in the audience.
INTERACTIVE: Track House, Senate and governor races
MORE: Refunds of campaign donations up 70% since 2009
Because the Tea Party is so determinedly decentralized, USA TODAY reached out to activists from New York to California, Ohio to Louisiana to get a sense of the breadth and depth of the movement's motivations, priorities, concerns and aspirations.
While it's difficult to generalize about any group, especially one still in evolution, the interviews provide a ground-level glimpse in their own words of the passions that drive the movement.
Among consistent themes, they:
•Keep it local. Chris Littleton, head of a Tea Party group in Cincinnati, says the activists he knows are driven by "this sense that you have to own your backyard first."
"I can't fix what is happening in D.C.," Littleton says. "But I can fix what is happening in my backyard. I can affect my township, my county, my city, my congressional district and my state."
Those interviewed reject the idea of national leaders or centralized organizations running things.
"The normal thing that people are looking for is some sort of organized structure, driven from the top down," says Mark Lloyd, chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party in Virginia. "But ... it's more of an attitude, and the attitude is of course just visceral patriotism, and a focus on limited government, fiscal responsibility, constitutional government or governance and personal liberties."
•Focus on fiscal issues. These Tea Party supporters say they emphasize fiscal conservatism and limited government over social issues.
In founding the congressional Tea Party Caucus, Bachmann says she focused on three ideas that she thinks unite the "various flavors" of the movement: "Act within the Constitution; we're taxed enough already; and don't spend more than you bring in."
"We don't get involved in the abortion issue, the gay-marriage issue, because we feel like that's when it starts dividing people," says Nita Thomas, leader of a group in Cincinnati.
•Reject forming a third party. "I don't like third parties," says Melanie Morgan, a former talk-show host who has been working with the Tea Party movement in California. "They don't work. Ask the people who supported Ross Perot. We ended up with Bill Clinton for eight years."
"There are plenty of alternative parties out there," says Bradley Rees, a factory worker in Lynchburg who writes a blog and hosts an Internet radio show. "The Tea Party is best served by being a watchdog group independent of all parties."
•Resent their portrayal in news stories.Liberal commentators including Eric Boehlert of Media Matters argue that some news organizations have overstated the clout of the Tea Party, but the activists USA TODAY interviewed call coverage in many newspapers and TV outlets unfairly negative.
They bristle in particular at stories that portray them as racists. Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said they were subjected to racial epithets during a demonstration by Tea Party activists on Capitol Hill earlier this year. Last month, the NAACP asked Tea Party activists to disavow the racist rhetoric of some members of the movement.
Mark Meckler, a California lawyer and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, says his group and others have denounced those who have made racially inflammatory remarks. "It's demonstrated that the movement has matured," he says.
C.L. Bryant, an African-American pastor of a church in Louisiana who has made frequent appearances on television and at rallies to defend the Tea Party, says attributing the views of a few fringe elements to the entire movement would be akin to assuming that all NAACP members agree with the New Black Panther movement's hostility to whites.
"No matter which side of the aisle you're on, we do have to admit there are nuts among us," Bryant says.
•Have no consensus on or much enthusiasm about the 2012 presidential field.
"I've got some people I think have some promise, but we've got a lot of time between now and then," Lloyd says. "I have been disappointed so much by the Republican Party that I'm just not prepared to put a lot of hope in any one person."
Littleton accuses GOP politicians of "pandering" to the Tea Party. "There's tons of rhetoric out there from all of these born-again conservatives," he says, "but I've yet to see anybody who's really standing tall on all of this stuff."
Many Tea Party supporters are Republicans or Republican-leaning voters who felt betrayed by the GOP during George W. Bush's presidency and since. They cite the Wall Street bailout known as TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit as the sort of expensive, big government programs they decry.
"I got angry when I was watching them pass the TARP bill," signed by Bush in October 2008, says Howard Hellwinkel, a New York businessman.
Some worry that their success may attract what Bryant calls "unscrupulous political operatives" who will try to co-opt the movement.
There also has been squabbling among Tea Party groups. "If some of these individuals don't tone it down and back off and play nice with one another, they are going to take a perfectly good movement and ruin it," Morgan warns.
Yet most Tea Party members describe their experience of the past year — for many, their introduction to activism — as overwhelmingly positive. Like the liberal Internet activists who powered the rise of Howard Dean in the 2004 Democratic presidential race and then of Barack Obama four years later, this new conservative movement has sparked a new wave of activists who are determined to be a factor this year and in campaigns to follow.
"We're a bunch of citizens who want to hold officials accountable," says Joe Thompson, who is working to defeat veteran Democratic Rep. John Spratt in South Carolina.
Tea Party activists talk about what they believe and how they plan to act
'I'm not the national spokeswoman'
GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann, a two-term member of the House from Minnesota, has become a favorite speaker at Tea Party rallies. Though the 54-year-old congresswoman started an official Tea Party Caucus in the House, she's eager to portray herself as a facilitator of the movement, not a leader.
"I'm not the national spokeswoman. No person in Congress is the spokesperson for the Tea Party because it's an organic, spontaneous movement by people all across the country. ...
"Our goal is not to co-opt the movement. We don't want to run it from Washington, D.C. We don't want to give directives to the Tea Party movement. We don't want to give them an agenda or tell them what to do or tell them what to do or manage them in any way.
"We are here for one simple but profound reason and that is to listen to them, because we think they have credibility. ...
"There was a number of (Tea Party leaders) that were very nervous and very concerned that by starting a Tea Party Caucus in Washington, our intention was to institutionalize the Tea Party and to effectively run it out of Washington. And that wasn't my objective, and it certainly wasn't their objective either, because for many good reasons, they're distrustful of Washington."
On how she gets elected in a state that has a longer record of voting Democrat for president than any other :
"Minnesota really doesn't like phonies. ... They appreciate a politician who will be who they say they are. As far left as (the late Democratic senator) Paul Wellstone was, he was respected for not squishing on his views, and I'm the same way.
"I'm a strong, unashamed, unapologetic conservative activist for the free market. People know that about me, and I'm respected because I don't squish on my views."
'I've become the pastor of the Tea Party'
C.L. Bryant, 55, of Grand Cane, La., says he may lose his pulpit over his Tea Party activism, which began almost accidentally when he attended a rally a year ago in Shreveport. A former president of the NAACP in Garland, Texas, he says he's sorry that his predominantly black Baptistcongregation is frustrated with him.
"I've become the pastor of the Tea Party. ...
"I was flipping through the AM stations and I ran across a guy called Rush (Limbaugh). ... Even though I knew he was an entertainer ... there were some things that he said that rang true. So my lean toward conservatism actually began with listening to a conservative radio program."
On accusations of racism within the Tea Party:
"It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the state of our country. Anybody in their right mind would be in favor of lower taxes, less government intrusion and more fiscal responsibility, whether you are black or white."
Some in his congregation "are emotionally attached to their skin color. ... This is not anything that has to do with skin color."
On why he's supporting the re-election of Republican Sen. David Vitter, who has admitted to hiring prostitutes:
"If you have no sin, then sure you go ahead and throw the first stone. One thing I admire about him is that when this came to light, he did not run from it, he did not duck it, he did not dodge it. He stood up to it like a man ought to. ...
"The only thing we can do is look at how a person handles his mistakes once they are revealed. I think he handled them honorably."
On why he opposes President Obama:
"He's too liberal for me."
'Three core values span everything we do'
Chris Littleton, 31, helped found the Cincinnati Tea Party last year. He says he has gone from someone who "never voted in a primary" to political activist. He's closely following a rematch between former Republican congressman Steve Chabot of Cincinnati and the Democrat who defeated him last year, Democratic Rep. Steve Driehaus.
"I had nothing to do with politics. I actually probably wanted nothing to do with politics. Until we all kind of crossed that line, which is: 'All right, we need to engage at this point or else the nation is going to hell in a handbasket, and if we don't do something about it, then that's exactly what's going to happen.'
"So there are high numbers of new people, and I think that's really the win for the campaign. ...
"My idea was ... if McDonald's can have a franchise on every corner, why can't people of like minds? Dump this party nonsense, this partisan nonsense and that's to where we are. There are certain things that I think 80%-90% of people believe in, and let's focus on those things, and let's put one of these little groups in every single precinct, every single voting precinct, every neighborhood in the United States.
"We have three core values that really, I guess, span everything we do. ...
"One, a fundamental limitation of government. The limited government is key. We believe that the more control and influence the size of government, the more it grows, the less important the individual is. ...
"And then the next would be fiscal responsibility. There is no excuse in the world why our government can't be fiscally responsible. ...
"And the last one is free markets, or you could call it free enterprise. The ability to earn your own way, to generate your own wealth, to create your own American dream should be relatively free from all of the inhibitions of the government."
'A fiscal movement'
Melanie Morgan, 53, of San Francisco, is a former radio talk show host who has been working with the Tea Party Express, a California-based group. She worked this year for Chuck DeVore, a California assemblyman who was seeking the GOP nomination for Senate. He lost to Carly Fiorina, who will face veteran Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer this fall.
"I was asked by Tea Party Express to introduce Sarah Palin in Searchlight, Nev., when the Tea Party Express kicked off their cross-country tour. And that was very exciting. The momentum was just phenomenal. The crowds were huge and of course under-reported by the mainstream media. There were probably 30,000 people there who had come from all across the United States to watch this moment in history. ...
"I would define the Tea Party movement as a fiscal movement. This is not a movement based on social issues. Many conservatives are involved only because of the fiscal aspect of smaller government, of lower taxation, of an accountability as far as the debt is concerned, the runaway spending by the liberal Congress. These are the issues that motivate us, that animate us. We're not talking abortion and we are not discussing gay marriage or anything that even comes close to approximating those issues.. .
On what she'll do in the California Senate race:
"To tell you the truth, to be honest, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm certainly not getting involved. I've not been approached by the Fiorina campaign. If I had been asked to help I probably would have been a good little trooper. But they apparently are not reaching out at a grass-roots level, so I'm not going to offer to step in.
"Anybody obviously is better to me than Barbara Boxer ... but Carly Fiorina has got to earn the support of Californians."
'Hold him accountable'
Mica Sims, 26, is a stay-at-home mom and organizer of Tea Party groups in Lexington, Ky. She was among the first in the movement to embrace Rand Paul, who won the state's Republican Senate nomination over Trey Grayson, the candidate backed by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others.
"We took on the establishment and we won. ...
"The message that we sent to Washington is that we are conservatives first and foremost, and mostly fiscal conservatives. Half of the Republicans in Washington voted for the bailout, voted for the TARP, voted for the stimulus, things that we Tea Party (supporters) are rallying against. ... We need some fiscal conservatives back and we believe as a people in Kentucky that Rand Paul will carry that message. ...
"The Tea Parties don't stop in November. I often say the Tea Party movement is going to start in November. ... As much as I have worked so hard for Rand Paul during this election, I will work 10 times harder once he is in Washington to hold him accountable, because that's what it is: They get to Washington and they get so disenfranchised from the American people and what is actually going on.
"If he gets in Washington and he changes, by God, I'll vote him out. I'll do everything I can to get him out. ... When I think of the Tea Party, I think, 'Wow, we're just getting going.' Now I have a candidate (for governor next year). ... We're going to get full force behind him. Then after that, after next year, we're up for another presidential election. I don't see the Tea Party movement going away anytime soon. We have a voice. Why would we stop?"
'Liberal bias in the media' hurts the movement
Mark Lloyd, 50, is a salesman and chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party in Virginia's 5th Congressional District, where several Tea Party groups are trying to defeat Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello. Another local Tea Party group had plans to burn the congressman in effigy to protest the signing of the health care bill but backed off after a furor.
"In my personal opinion, I think if they would have done it, it would have been counterproductive. ... There are lines that can be crossed if we're not careful. To me, I understand the freedom of speech aspects of it, but I wouldn't have done it."
Would it have put the Tea Party in a difficult place?
"The media does everything they can to make sure it does put the Tea Parties in a bad place. ...
"For instance, I had a Tea Party meeting last Thursday. OK? We had over 120 people in our meeting in Lynchburg, Va. Now, that room was filled with good people. You will see doctors, lawyers, college professors, highly educated people, professionals of all sorts. And who does the media pick out? On the way out, they'll find the person who is the least sophisticated in appearance, and that's the one that gets all the time and whatever. That's so typical. That's typical of what happens and how the media tries to paint the Tea Party. ...
"Liberal bias in the media is what paints ... the face of the Tea Party as being something less than good, and they do that so the people just now awakening to the terrible problems in this country would be repulsed by the Tea Party. That is very much what's going on: Put the Tea Party in a bad light and it works for the liberals."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-08-13-1Ateaparty12_CV_N....
By Kathy Kiely and Susan Page, USA TODAY
A year ago, the political hurricane known as the "Tea Party" erupted in made-for-YouTube confrontations at congressional town hall meetings on the pending health care overhaul.
This August, the movement's supporters seem less rowdy — perhaps because they're pounding the pavement and dialing phones, trying to alter the balance of power in Congress in the fall elections. While Tea Party-favored candidates have lost in contests including the California GOP Senate primary, they have won Republican Senate primaries in Colorado, Kentucky, Nevada and Utah.
They say it's just the start.
"We're not in this to make noise and to saber-rattle," says Dan Blanchard of the Louisville Tea Party, which helped Rand Paul claim the Senate nomination in Kentucky. "We're in this thing to win."
The test now: Whether Paul and others can prevail under even tougher scrutiny and win over the broader electorate that votes in November. That will require a sustained commitment from a network that revels in its bottom-up nature and loose organization.
"That's part of the verve and vibrancy," says Rep. Michele Bachmann. At the first meeting of the congressional Tea Party Caucus last month, the Minnesota Republican underscored the primacy of the grass roots by having members of the public sit on the dais normally reserved for members of Congress. Lawmakers sat in the audience.
INTERACTIVE: Track House, Senate and governor races
MORE: Refunds of campaign donations up 70% since 2009
Because the Tea Party is so determinedly decentralized, USA TODAY reached out to activists from New York to California, Ohio to Louisiana to get a sense of the breadth and depth of the movement's motivations, priorities, concerns and aspirations.
While it's difficult to generalize about any group, especially one still in evolution, the interviews provide a ground-level glimpse in their own words of the passions that drive the movement.
Among consistent themes, they:
•Keep it local. Chris Littleton, head of a Tea Party group in Cincinnati, says the activists he knows are driven by "this sense that you have to own your backyard first."
"I can't fix what is happening in D.C.," Littleton says. "But I can fix what is happening in my backyard. I can affect my township, my county, my city, my congressional district and my state."
Those interviewed reject the idea of national leaders or centralized organizations running things.
"The normal thing that people are looking for is some sort of organized structure, driven from the top down," says Mark Lloyd, chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party in Virginia. "But ... it's more of an attitude, and the attitude is of course just visceral patriotism, and a focus on limited government, fiscal responsibility, constitutional government or governance and personal liberties."
•Focus on fiscal issues. These Tea Party supporters say they emphasize fiscal conservatism and limited government over social issues.
In founding the congressional Tea Party Caucus, Bachmann says she focused on three ideas that she thinks unite the "various flavors" of the movement: "Act within the Constitution; we're taxed enough already; and don't spend more than you bring in."
"We don't get involved in the abortion issue, the gay-marriage issue, because we feel like that's when it starts dividing people," says Nita Thomas, leader of a group in Cincinnati.
•Reject forming a third party. "I don't like third parties," says Melanie Morgan, a former talk-show host who has been working with the Tea Party movement in California. "They don't work. Ask the people who supported Ross Perot. We ended up with Bill Clinton for eight years."
"There are plenty of alternative parties out there," says Bradley Rees, a factory worker in Lynchburg who writes a blog and hosts an Internet radio show. "The Tea Party is best served by being a watchdog group independent of all parties."
•Resent their portrayal in news stories.Liberal commentators including Eric Boehlert of Media Matters argue that some news organizations have overstated the clout of the Tea Party, but the activists USA TODAY interviewed call coverage in many newspapers and TV outlets unfairly negative.
They bristle in particular at stories that portray them as racists. Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said they were subjected to racial epithets during a demonstration by Tea Party activists on Capitol Hill earlier this year. Last month, the NAACP asked Tea Party activists to disavow the racist rhetoric of some members of the movement.
Mark Meckler, a California lawyer and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, says his group and others have denounced those who have made racially inflammatory remarks. "It's demonstrated that the movement has matured," he says.
C.L. Bryant, an African-American pastor of a church in Louisiana who has made frequent appearances on television and at rallies to defend the Tea Party, says attributing the views of a few fringe elements to the entire movement would be akin to assuming that all NAACP members agree with the New Black Panther movement's hostility to whites.
"No matter which side of the aisle you're on, we do have to admit there are nuts among us," Bryant says.
•Have no consensus on or much enthusiasm about the 2012 presidential field.
"I've got some people I think have some promise, but we've got a lot of time between now and then," Lloyd says. "I have been disappointed so much by the Republican Party that I'm just not prepared to put a lot of hope in any one person."
Littleton accuses GOP politicians of "pandering" to the Tea Party. "There's tons of rhetoric out there from all of these born-again conservatives," he says, "but I've yet to see anybody who's really standing tall on all of this stuff."
Many Tea Party supporters are Republicans or Republican-leaning voters who felt betrayed by the GOP during George W. Bush's presidency and since. They cite the Wall Street bailout known as TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit as the sort of expensive, big government programs they decry.
"I got angry when I was watching them pass the TARP bill," signed by Bush in October 2008, says Howard Hellwinkel, a New York businessman.
Some worry that their success may attract what Bryant calls "unscrupulous political operatives" who will try to co-opt the movement.
There also has been squabbling among Tea Party groups. "If some of these individuals don't tone it down and back off and play nice with one another, they are going to take a perfectly good movement and ruin it," Morgan warns.
Yet most Tea Party members describe their experience of the past year — for many, their introduction to activism — as overwhelmingly positive. Like the liberal Internet activists who powered the rise of Howard Dean in the 2004 Democratic presidential race and then of Barack Obama four years later, this new conservative movement has sparked a new wave of activists who are determined to be a factor this year and in campaigns to follow.
"We're a bunch of citizens who want to hold officials accountable," says Joe Thompson, who is working to defeat veteran Democratic Rep. John Spratt in South Carolina.
Tea Party activists talk about what they believe and how they plan to act
'I'm not the national spokeswoman'
GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann, a two-term member of the House from Minnesota, has become a favorite speaker at Tea Party rallies. Though the 54-year-old congresswoman started an official Tea Party Caucus in the House, she's eager to portray herself as a facilitator of the movement, not a leader.
"I'm not the national spokeswoman. No person in Congress is the spokesperson for the Tea Party because it's an organic, spontaneous movement by people all across the country. ...
"Our goal is not to co-opt the movement. We don't want to run it from Washington, D.C. We don't want to give directives to the Tea Party movement. We don't want to give them an agenda or tell them what to do or tell them what to do or manage them in any way.
"We are here for one simple but profound reason and that is to listen to them, because we think they have credibility. ...
"There was a number of (Tea Party leaders) that were very nervous and very concerned that by starting a Tea Party Caucus in Washington, our intention was to institutionalize the Tea Party and to effectively run it out of Washington. And that wasn't my objective, and it certainly wasn't their objective either, because for many good reasons, they're distrustful of Washington."
On how she gets elected in a state that has a longer record of voting Democrat for president than any other :
"Minnesota really doesn't like phonies. ... They appreciate a politician who will be who they say they are. As far left as (the late Democratic senator) Paul Wellstone was, he was respected for not squishing on his views, and I'm the same way.
"I'm a strong, unashamed, unapologetic conservative activist for the free market. People know that about me, and I'm respected because I don't squish on my views."
'I've become the pastor of the Tea Party'
C.L. Bryant, 55, of Grand Cane, La., says he may lose his pulpit over his Tea Party activism, which began almost accidentally when he attended a rally a year ago in Shreveport. A former president of the NAACP in Garland, Texas, he says he's sorry that his predominantly black Baptistcongregation is frustrated with him.
"I've become the pastor of the Tea Party. ...
"I was flipping through the AM stations and I ran across a guy called Rush (Limbaugh). ... Even though I knew he was an entertainer ... there were some things that he said that rang true. So my lean toward conservatism actually began with listening to a conservative radio program."
On accusations of racism within the Tea Party:
"It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the state of our country. Anybody in their right mind would be in favor of lower taxes, less government intrusion and more fiscal responsibility, whether you are black or white."
Some in his congregation "are emotionally attached to their skin color. ... This is not anything that has to do with skin color."
On why he's supporting the re-election of Republican Sen. David Vitter, who has admitted to hiring prostitutes:
"If you have no sin, then sure you go ahead and throw the first stone. One thing I admire about him is that when this came to light, he did not run from it, he did not duck it, he did not dodge it. He stood up to it like a man ought to. ...
"The only thing we can do is look at how a person handles his mistakes once they are revealed. I think he handled them honorably."
On why he opposes President Obama:
"He's too liberal for me."
'Three core values span everything we do'
Chris Littleton, 31, helped found the Cincinnati Tea Party last year. He says he has gone from someone who "never voted in a primary" to political activist. He's closely following a rematch between former Republican congressman Steve Chabot of Cincinnati and the Democrat who defeated him last year, Democratic Rep. Steve Driehaus.
"I had nothing to do with politics. I actually probably wanted nothing to do with politics. Until we all kind of crossed that line, which is: 'All right, we need to engage at this point or else the nation is going to hell in a handbasket, and if we don't do something about it, then that's exactly what's going to happen.'
"So there are high numbers of new people, and I think that's really the win for the campaign. ...
"My idea was ... if McDonald's can have a franchise on every corner, why can't people of like minds? Dump this party nonsense, this partisan nonsense and that's to where we are. There are certain things that I think 80%-90% of people believe in, and let's focus on those things, and let's put one of these little groups in every single precinct, every single voting precinct, every neighborhood in the United States.
"We have three core values that really, I guess, span everything we do. ...
"One, a fundamental limitation of government. The limited government is key. We believe that the more control and influence the size of government, the more it grows, the less important the individual is. ...
"And then the next would be fiscal responsibility. There is no excuse in the world why our government can't be fiscally responsible. ...
"And the last one is free markets, or you could call it free enterprise. The ability to earn your own way, to generate your own wealth, to create your own American dream should be relatively free from all of the inhibitions of the government."
'A fiscal movement'
Melanie Morgan, 53, of San Francisco, is a former radio talk show host who has been working with the Tea Party Express, a California-based group. She worked this year for Chuck DeVore, a California assemblyman who was seeking the GOP nomination for Senate. He lost to Carly Fiorina, who will face veteran Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer this fall.
"I was asked by Tea Party Express to introduce Sarah Palin in Searchlight, Nev., when the Tea Party Express kicked off their cross-country tour. And that was very exciting. The momentum was just phenomenal. The crowds were huge and of course under-reported by the mainstream media. There were probably 30,000 people there who had come from all across the United States to watch this moment in history. ...
"I would define the Tea Party movement as a fiscal movement. This is not a movement based on social issues. Many conservatives are involved only because of the fiscal aspect of smaller government, of lower taxation, of an accountability as far as the debt is concerned, the runaway spending by the liberal Congress. These are the issues that motivate us, that animate us. We're not talking abortion and we are not discussing gay marriage or anything that even comes close to approximating those issues.. .
On what she'll do in the California Senate race:
"To tell you the truth, to be honest, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm certainly not getting involved. I've not been approached by the Fiorina campaign. If I had been asked to help I probably would have been a good little trooper. But they apparently are not reaching out at a grass-roots level, so I'm not going to offer to step in.
"Anybody obviously is better to me than Barbara Boxer ... but Carly Fiorina has got to earn the support of Californians."
'Hold him accountable'
Mica Sims, 26, is a stay-at-home mom and organizer of Tea Party groups in Lexington, Ky. She was among the first in the movement to embrace Rand Paul, who won the state's Republican Senate nomination over Trey Grayson, the candidate backed by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others.
"We took on the establishment and we won. ...
"The message that we sent to Washington is that we are conservatives first and foremost, and mostly fiscal conservatives. Half of the Republicans in Washington voted for the bailout, voted for the TARP, voted for the stimulus, things that we Tea Party (supporters) are rallying against. ... We need some fiscal conservatives back and we believe as a people in Kentucky that Rand Paul will carry that message. ...
"The Tea Parties don't stop in November. I often say the Tea Party movement is going to start in November. ... As much as I have worked so hard for Rand Paul during this election, I will work 10 times harder once he is in Washington to hold him accountable, because that's what it is: They get to Washington and they get so disenfranchised from the American people and what is actually going on.
"If he gets in Washington and he changes, by God, I'll vote him out. I'll do everything I can to get him out. ... When I think of the Tea Party, I think, 'Wow, we're just getting going.' Now I have a candidate (for governor next year). ... We're going to get full force behind him. Then after that, after next year, we're up for another presidential election. I don't see the Tea Party movement going away anytime soon. We have a voice. Why would we stop?"
'Liberal bias in the media' hurts the movement
Mark Lloyd, 50, is a salesman and chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party in Virginia's 5th Congressional District, where several Tea Party groups are trying to defeat Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello. Another local Tea Party group had plans to burn the congressman in effigy to protest the signing of the health care bill but backed off after a furor.
"In my personal opinion, I think if they would have done it, it would have been counterproductive. ... There are lines that can be crossed if we're not careful. To me, I understand the freedom of speech aspects of it, but I wouldn't have done it."
Would it have put the Tea Party in a difficult place?
"The media does everything they can to make sure it does put the Tea Parties in a bad place. ...
"For instance, I had a Tea Party meeting last Thursday. OK? We had over 120 people in our meeting in Lynchburg, Va. Now, that room was filled with good people. You will see doctors, lawyers, college professors, highly educated people, professionals of all sorts. And who does the media pick out? On the way out, they'll find the person who is the least sophisticated in appearance, and that's the one that gets all the time and whatever. That's so typical. That's typical of what happens and how the media tries to paint the Tea Party. ...
"Liberal bias in the media is what paints ... the face of the Tea Party as being something less than good, and they do that so the people just now awakening to the terrible problems in this country would be repulsed by the Tea Party. That is very much what's going on: Put the Tea Party in a bad light and it works for the liberals."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-08-13-1Ateaparty12_CV_N....
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Two things that stood out for me in reading this.
First, I basically agreed with the Cincinnati guy who said: ""I can't fix what is happening in D.C.. But I can fix what is happening in my backyard. I can affect my township, my county, my city, my congressional district and my state." Long-term bottom-feeders in the state and local governments have been paying attention to what Washington DC has been getting away with lately , and so we must be vigilant and need to pay attention to them to see that they don't contract any more of their bad habits.
Second, you have to wonder why the news media is almost unanimous in their negative depiction of Tea Party operations. When and why did the news media stop caring about the true rights and welfare of the people?
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