Tea Party holds grievance day

Rallies abound in nation, state

A crowd of a few thousand gathered on the steps of the Arkansas State Capitol for a Tea Party rally on Thursday evening.
A crowd of a few thousand gathered on the steps of the Arkansas State Capitol for a Tea Party rally on Thursday evening.

Tea Party events took place throughout the day Thursday in 20 or more Arkansas cities and across the nation from Maine to Hawaii, Wisconsin to Texas. The themes included objections to the size of government spending and fears about what’s seen as a Washington tax grab. Thursday was the income tax filing deadline formost taxpayers.

Several thousand people rallied in Washington. A protest tour that began in Nevada ended in Freedom Plaza in the nation’s capital, the city that inspires Tea Party discontent like no other.

Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota won roars of affirmation from the Tea Party group when she accused PresidentBarack Obama and congressional Democrats of trying to take over health care, energy, financial services and other broad swaths of the economy.

“We’re on to this gangster government,” she declared. “I say it’s time for these little piggies to go home.”

Although some Republicans are ideological allies of Tea Partiers - and GOP operatives are involved in some of the organizations - they are also part of the D.C. establishment that many in the movement want to upend.

Political consultant Dick Morris, the head speaker at a Fayetteville Tea Party event, asked a crowd of 400 not vote for an Arkansas Republican congressional candidate who hadn’t committed to oppose tax increases.

Morris spoke of Steve Womack, who is running in the 3rd Congressional District, saying, “The information I have is Steve Womack, the mayor of Rogers, has refused to take the no-tax pledge. I urge you, don’t vote for Womack.”

However, later Thursday, Womack sent out a press release saying that he had signed the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”

“I feel like a pinata,” said Womack, who according to some polls is the front-runner in the race. “I’m getting slugged at and talked about. But it doesn’t change our campaign at all. We have a terrific message and a great resume. Our support is incredible.”

Womack wouldn’t say whether his decision to sign the pledge was influenced by Morris.

“I’ve never met Dick Morris, and I’ve never talked to Dick Morris, but when somebody of his stature says I’ve refused to sign something, that’s totally inaccurate,” Womack said.

The Taxpayer Protection Pledge for congressional candidates states that they will “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses and oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”

Morris was a political consultant for former Arkansas Gov. and U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

A Tea Party rally at the state Capitol in Little Rock drew about 800 people, according to an estimate by the secretary of state’s office.

Nationally a sample of disdain for Republicans showed up in Wisconsin, where a half dozen Tea Party groups decided to boycott a rally in Madison because former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was among the speakers.

“We do feel it’s important that people know this is not who we would ever align ourselves with,” said Kirsten Lombard, organizer of a Madison-based Tea Party group.

Tim Dake, organizer of the Milwaukee-based Grand-Sons of Liberty, said: “Tommy is representative of the old boy network way of doing things.”

A sign carried by a Tea Party member in Washington read: “Re-elect No One.”

In Washington, the crowd chanted, “There’s a communist in the White House” at the urging of the ukelele-playing Victoria Jackson, a former cast member on Saturday Night Live.

The slogans on signs and T-shirts included: “We Want Regime Change,” “Save a Seal, Club a Liberal,” “Down with the Gov’t Takeover,” “End the Fed” and “Waterboard Bernanke.” Some Americanflags waved upside down in the breeze.

In Fayetteville, some in the crowd carried signs saying “D.C., District of Communism” and “Less Marx, more Madison.”

Morris began his 40-minute speech in Fayetteville by talking about Clinton.

Morris said he was a conservative Democrat when he worked for Clinton. “Right now, there is no such thing as a conservative Democrat,” he said. “Either you are a Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid Democrat or you are a Republican, and ladies and gentlemen, that’s why I’m a Republican.”

Morris gave a similar speech at the state Capitol.

Before he spoke in Little Rock, Jeannie Burlsworth of Bryant, president of Secure Arkansas, a group that opposes federal health-care changes, characterized the political climate as “God versus government.”

One speaker at the event urged people with racially insensitive signs to take them down or hold them across the street. No such signs were visible. The speaker said the Tea Party welcomed all people.

Signs included: “Boot Blanche” referring to U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who is up for re-election this year, and “Sen. Lincoln, Queen of Socialism.”

Gabe Holmstrom, a state Democratic Party adviser, attended the rally briefly, he said, to see what was going on. He declined to comment later about the event.

In Jonesboro, about 300 crowded outside the Craighead County Courthouse late in the afternoon as politicians handed out bumper stickers and a band played the JohnMayer tune, “Waiting on the World to Change.”

Some people gathered signatures on petitions and took straw polls on several statewide election issues. Many sat in lawn chairs and waved handwritten signs at motorists who passed by on Main and Washington streets.

“Do you miss me?” read one sign, with a picture of former President George W. Bush.

“Washington D.C. = District of Corruption,” read another.

Paul Harrell, a Jonesboro AM-radio station talk-show host, led the array of speakers, saying America is “headed for a disaster.”

“We’re on the road to a downfall if we don’t act now,” he said.

“It’s time to do what we’re doing here and step it up a notch,” said Shane Knight, a pastor with Secure Arkansas. “We need to tell the government, ‘We are not your doormat.’”

In Benton, a couple of dozen protesters gathered in a parking lot on Military Road, holding signs decrying taxes and big government, and linking Obama with socialism.

Ken Gilbert, an unemployed Benton resident, said he’s active in the Tea Party movement to promote limited government, fiscal responsibility, free enterprise and a strong defense.

All incumbents should be voted out, said the 60-yearold who wore a T-shirt with the “O” in Obama replaced by the hammer and sickle.

“Throw the bums out,” offered another man, who wore a Jim Holt sticker on his shirt. Holt, a Republican from Springdale running for U.S. Senate, was among those who shook hands and handed out campaign material at the event.

In El Dorado, a crowd gathered on the Union County Courthouse square at noon to hear the Republican candidates for the 4th Congressional District.

One, Glenn Gallas of Hot Springs, asked those on his left to chant “No taxes” and those on his right to respond with “No spending.”

“That’s what freedom sounds like. We’ve been yelling at the TV when we should have yelled at the politicians. It’s our fault,” Gallas said.

His GOP opponent, Beth Anne Rankin of Magnolia, looked around at the crowd and said, “These represent the best of America.”

Jerry and Yvonne Adams drove nearly 80 miles oneway from their home in Cherokee Village in Sharp County to attend the Ozark Tea Party at the Baxter County Fairgrounds in Mountain Home.

“We don’t like the direction the country is headed. We think Obama, Pelosi and Reid are socialist,” said Jerry Adams, who held up a homemade cardboard sign with the message, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”

His wife’s hand-lettered sign read, “It’s not right or left, it’s right or wrong” on one side and “Remember in November” on the other.

Yvonne Adams said some people think Tea Partiers are racially biased because Obama is the country’s first black president. “That has nothing to do with it,” she said.

Obama “wants to destroy private-sector health insurance” by moving toward government-run health care, she said.

“We have insurance,” Jerry Adams said. “I’m happy with my insurance. I don’t want to support anyone else’s.”

Keynote speaker and nationally-syndicated radio talkshow host Rusty Humphries did live cut-ins on Mountain Home radio station KJMT, telling the broadcast audience that he’d been invited to several April 15 Tea Party events around the country.

“I chose Mountain Home, Arkansas, because this is where the real people are. This is where the movement has to begin,” he said.

His show is syndicated to more than 250 radio stations through The Talk Radio Network.

In an interview, Humphries said Tea Party enthusiasts have been called names like “tea baggers” and “tea hadists.”

“These are just regular folks who believe in this country and following the Constitution,” he said.

Information for this article was contributed by Seth Blomeley, Bill Bowden, Ken Heard, and Ginny LaRoe of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; by Joan Hershberger of the El Dorado News-Times; and by Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., Brett Barrouquere in Louisville, Ky., April Castro in Austin, Texas, Deanna Bellandi in Chicago, and Philip Elliott, Laurie Kellman and Ann Sanner in Washington.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/16/2010

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