Yesterday marked the 1-year Anniversary of the Tea Parties heard ‘round the world.
As the Event Director at two of the largest Tea Parties in the United States televised on FOX News, I am often asked, “What is the future of the Tea Party movement?”
My fellow Californians, I can tell you this: The state of the Tea Party is strong, and it is here to stay.
During “Tax Day” yesterday, one only needed to walk over to the steps of the Capitol to witness thousands of people fed up with their government. In California, of all places – the most Liberal state in the union. Thousands strong, this crowd didn’t exist two years ago. They certainly didn’t exist in 2005 when Governor Schwarzenegger was trying to change the system. Just imagine if they had.
In fact, if you’ve never actually attended a Tea Party in person and have only seen them on MSNBC, you might be of the opinion that they’re all a hostile, angry bunch. Think again.
Most of the Tea Party attendees are average working folks. They are small business owners, mom and pop stores, stay-at-home moms, and retirees who have become so fed up with a system they feel no longer represents them, that they can remain the silent majority no longer. The majority of the Tea Party members are regular folks like you and me, just hoping they can pay the mortgage, raise their kids, and at the end of the day squeak out enough to be able to retire someday without having to be an extraordinary burden on their children. Yet at every turn, they see their elected officials voting against the very things that will allow them to do just that.
So, are they passionate? You bet they are. Are they nuts? Not quite.
In fact: More Americans now approve of the Tea Party movement than President Barack Obama.
To be sure, the Tea Party organizers had a rough start out of the gate with the Media. Call it Media bias, call it what you will; I prefer to think that the Media wasn’t quite sure what to think of them – simply because they’d never seen anything quite like it before. At least not in our generation. And certainly not on our side of the issues.
One Statewide organization addressed the challenges the movement has faced. Speaking at a standing-room only “Tea Party eve” event in downtown Sacramento Wednesday night, Americans for Prosperity’s national president Tim Phillips invoked the words of Mahatma Ghandi. The words come from Ghandi’s fight for India’s freedom from the British government, and it is a quote that all too resembles what has been thrown in the Tea Party’s path during the last year: “First, they ignore you. Then, they ridicule you. Then, they fight you. Then, you win.” Having been through some of the most painful growing pains of the Tea Party movement, I can tell you that’s precisely how they’ve been treated. Yet in the face of ridicule, these Patriots have stuck to their principles and have continued to gain ground, holding more than 800 Tea Parties across this nation yesterday.
So, how long will the Tea Party movement be around?
They will absolutely be around through the 2010 Fall Elections. And they will certainly stick around through what they hope will be the end of Obama’s reign as President in 2012.
Beyond that? I predict the Tea Party movement will be around, well, as long as they feel they need to be. That is the basic independent spirit upon which their foundation was built. So, pull up a lawn chair and get comfortable. Because no one – and I mean, no one – is going to tell them when to pack up and go home.