A Taste of Tea!!

OK after nearly one year of reading , hearing , and watching the Tea Party movement I decided to actually attend an event. My wife, who is the voice of reason in our marriage agreed ( after being offered lunch out) to come with me to the "liberal bastion" of Mill Valley in Marin County CA. The event which had been proclaimed by some local liberals as an event promoting sedition was the Conservative Candidates Groupa-Palooza.

As we entered town we made a left turn one left turn early and drove up a hill. We met a group of young college age men with protest signs of Barack Obama with a Hitler mustache and American flags. We were told that the event was one street over but my heart sank after seeing these idiots and for a second I thought about just turning around and going home. But I ever the fool trudged on and we managed the find the last parking spot in the lot. More about those idiots latter.

My first analysis was to determine just what kinds of vehicles do people drive to an event like this? Some would say that the parking lot being inhabited by the rich and earth hating Republicans would have been filled with Hummers and Escalades, but that was not the case. The cars were pretty much non d script. Our chromed up PT Cruiser was perhaps the most exotic car in the lot. It usually is.

We joined a line in front of the center only to see the idiots with the Hitler posters again but then I saw something at the bottom of the posters. The words Lyndon LaRouche were proudly displayed at the bottom of their signs. For those of you too young to remember Mr. LaRouche is a crazy man who ran for the Democratic nomination for President in the 1980's. His followers actually won a couple of state legislature primaries but the campaign momentum was short lived as Mr. LaRouche was sent to prison for financing his campaigns with stolen credit card numbers.

I and the rest of the line joined in a polite heaping of verbal barbs toward these young men. I was beginning to feel a little better.

We then proceeded into the hall into what seemed to be a bazaar of politics. Now one would expect the GOP to be dominate at an event like this and they were. There were also booths set up for the American Interdependent and Libertarian Parties. There were also booths for the Minutemen and several book publishers. Individual candidates also had booths and I took time to speak with Ms. Virginia Fuller the lady pictured at the top of this post. She is seeking to replace my worthless excuse for a Congressman , Mr. George Miller.

The makeup of the crowd attending this event was 98% white and to many who choose to profile the tea movement this is in itself proof of racism. My observation however of those outside the community center and on the city streets was that they were 100% white. In other words our event was as diverse or more diverse than the surrounding community.

The one thing that bothered me a little was what seemed to be the lack of Asian Americans at the event. When I drive past my local abortion clinic and I see people praying in silent protest it is invariably people of Asian descent. In other words hard working middle class social conservatives. These are people would have may have been defined as Reagan Democrats in the 1980s. I have a feeling that tapping that demographic into the Tea Party is going to take a while but when that sleeping giant awakes it will shake CA.

The event was sponsored by the Bay Area Patriots a group with no officers and all volunteers. The main organizer of the event Ms. Sally Zelikovsky, presented a home baked "Humble Pie" in honor of Nancy Pelosi to the joyful roar of the crowd. She the proceeded to introduce local candidates for office as they gave short speeches and also local conservative talk show host Brian Sussman.

In general the people attending this event were as polite as anything I had ever seen this side of a church potluck. After tasting the tea I think I will come back for more.

A Voice In the Wilderness