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Saturday, July 04, 2009
Tea Party Activists Let Jabs Roll Off
By Sean Olson
Of the Journal
There are plenty of perceptions of the Albuquerque Tea Party, one of hundreds of Tea Party organizations that have popped up from New York to Hawaii.
Among those perceptions: They're wingnuts who operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party; they're dingbats who want lower taxes no matter the consequences; they're C.A.V.E. people: Citizens Against Virtually Everything.
Tina Carson, one of the original Albuquerque Tea Party organizers, lets the slams slide off her back.
While others are trying to pigeonhole her group, she said, Tea Party organizers are quietly creating what they believe will become a major political force.
"They really have no idea how big we really are," Carson said.
Tea Party events are being held around New Mexico and the rest of the country today — coinciding, not by accident, with Independence Day.
The Albuquerque group plans to show off its numbers today with an event that organizers hope can draw more than 10,000 people.
The Albuquerque event is being held just east of the Balloon Fiesta Park entrance at 4509 Alameda Blvd. NE on Telstar Construction Company property. It's scheduled to run from 4 to 6 p.m.
Linda Merrell, another organizer, said that, once people understand what the Tea Party is really about, they are usually more likely to join than to criticize.
It's all about spending what the country can afford and keeping government from intruding on our daily lives, Merrell said.
Government needs to shrink before deficits or taxation become too much for the country to handle, she said. "What (elected officials) need to understand is that the American people know there is only so much we can afford."
And while each Tea Party is different, the Albuquerque version is fiercely nonpartisan, Carson said. Both political parties have approached the group trying to coopt its members — and message, she said.
"They've tried to do that, but that's just not going to work," Carson said. "These people here in this movement, they're not sheep to be herded by a political party."
Merrell said the evidence of the group's appeal can be seen through its quick rise into the public eye. She said it was organized by about 50 friends and acquaintances who sent out e-mails and set up a Web site. Just a few short weeks later, on April 15, roughly 7,000 people showed up to demonstrate on Albuquerque's Montgomery Blvd., she said. (Journal reporters covering the event were able to estimate a crowd about half that size).
Most of the people who have pledged their support aren't crackpots, Carson said. They're normal people with concerns that have been ignored by both parties for a long time. And most have never been part of a political movement before, Merrell said.
"I've never protested or carried a sign or done anything like this," Merrell said.
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