This is a question that is continually asked in the media and blogs. It seems to be asked even more with the hype over Sarah Palin speaking at the Tea Party Nation Convention this weekend. Political pundits are eager to place us in a category to explain us away. Republicans and Democrats like the label because it accomplishes two objectives: 1) scares away Democrats who feel disenfranchised by their party but don’t want to join something that is identified as extreme, 2) makes Republicans fearful their support of the Tea Party will “split” the conservative vote when it comes to choosing candidates. Let’s at least be honest here, the biggest fear of both political parties is that the Tea Party be perceived as mainstream. So it benefits both of them to label us as “far right.”

But the questions still remains, is the Tea Party a far right movement? Political philosophy is labeled left or right based on the principles it espouses. It is then necessary to examine the tenets of the Tea Party:

Legislate within the parameters of the Constitution

Stop the insane and irresponsible spending

Shrink the size of an out-of-control national government

Govern with virtue and accountability (another way of saying get rid of all the dishonest, corrupt politicians)

So what part of this list is the far right? These ideas are the center. They are the principles upon which our country was founded. Why would demanding that the Constitution be the authoritative, governing document of our country be considered a far right idea? The Constitution should be the middle ground and anyone who strays from that is moving to the left or right.

We have a national debt of over $12 trillion. To add the icing to the cake, Obama just proposed an astounding $3.83 TRILLION budget that has massive deficits. This massive deficit of over $1.5 TRILLION is despite the huge tax increases he has included in his budget.

There is absolutely no attempt to shrink the size of governmment or seriously cut spending. In fact, Obama’s budget has more programs and increased spending than was proposed last year. His spending freeze is a joke. While he is going to spend $3.83 TRILLION, he has proposed saving $250 billion over the next decade with his spending freeze. You heard us right!

It is important to remember that the Tea Party movement saw its birth out of the Bush TARP plan. The Democrats and Republicans have created a culture of spending, taxing, ignoring the Constitution, corruption, and government programs. They are the extreme. We are the center. We are centered in the Constitution, common-sense, prudence, and virtue. That isn’t far right…that is simply what is right for this country. I say both parties need to meet us in the center!

This seems to be a question that gets asked to us by people of all stripes and political backgrounds – “Is the Tea Party secretly funded by a political party (hence the frequently used Astroturf word) or other organization?”

First off, if you are looking to gain employment or be privately funded by a political party, then being part of a movement that continues to highlight the shortcomings of both parties is not the way to go. Secondly, if you knew how excited we get when we receive any donation, like the unsolicited check for $500 we received yesterday that had us all jumping for joy, you would laugh at the assertion that we are secretly funded by some bottomless pit of money. What is ironic about the questions are that the Democrats accuse us of being funded by the Republicans and the Republicans accuse us of being funded by “someone, we just can’t figure out who yet.” What is remarkable about both of these positions is that neither party can seem to fathom a movement with this much intensity and commitment that isn’t motivated by power and money.

For all of us in the Tea Party movement who stay up until 1:30am every night working on Tea Party projects, meet multiple times a month to strategize and plan, pay for our own gas, babysitters, and supplies so we can attend Tea Party events, use vacation days to attend protests/rallies, take significant amounts of time away from our family and STILL donate money to the Tea Party…we find the accusations highly offensive.

Richmond Tea Party was built on the endless volunteer hours of dedicated patriots. As our Founder, Sara, often said, ”it is a labor of love and we live off of people’s encouragement and notes of appreciation.” It has grown into a movement that now represents and has the active participation of thousands in the Richmond area. It will be interesting to see how long it takes both parties to realize that the only thing motivating us is our passion for shrinking the size of government, fiscal competence, and loyalty to the Constitution.

Richmond Tea Party is a grassroots organization to its core. While it is hard for the other political parties to imagine that a grassroots movement can exist outside of their party, let’s look at the definition of grassroots according to Wikipedia –

A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures. Grassroots movements are often at the local level, as many volunteers in the community give their time to support the local party, which can lead to helping the national party.

Wikipedia goes on to further define the techniques that a grassroots movement employs to organize and lobby:

hosting house meetings or parties

having larger meetings

putting up posters

talking with pedestrians on the street (often involving informational clipboards)

gathering signatures for petitions

setting up information tables

raising money from many small donors for political advertising or campaigns

organizing large demonstrations

asking individuals to submit opinions to media outlets and government officials

holding get out the vote activities, which include the practices of reminding people to vote and transporting them to polling places

This sure sounds like Richmond Tea Party! We are grassroots to the core. Don’t misunderstand us though, we hope to be a formidable player financially as well, but our financial support will come from individual and small business patriots. We pledge to take no bailouts, stimulus funds, NGO funding, or public grants. If you still don’t get it, then we encourage you to listen to this interview between Katie Couric and some Tea Party leaders. They do a good job of fleshing out who we are as a movement. I know, it is Katie Couric, but it is actually very well done much to our surprise.

Here is an email we received from Donna Holt of Campaign for Liberty, who has been a tremendous leader in helping shepherd through these 10th Amendment bills:

In a 4 – 1 vote in the House Militia, Police and Public Safety Subcommittee #1,
HB 69, the VA Firearms Freedom Act, was recommended to be reported by the full MPPS Committee to the full House for a vote. It was a party vote with the 4 Republicans in favor and the lone Democrat opposed. The recommendation is non-binding. The bill will come before the full MPPS Committee next week.

There was much opposition testimony by those who believe that guns kill. I’ve never seen a gun law that reformed a criminal or prevented them from getting guns. Imagine how life would be if everyone felt that way. You and I would be defenseless against an arsenal of weapons any criminal is able to obtain regardless of gun laws that restrict them. [RTP Sidenote: Not to mention that it is a right in the Constitution. We support the entire Constitution, not just selective parts.]

The feeling is that this bill will pass the full committee. The real battle will be in the Senate. We will need ALL HANDS ON DECK when it comes up on the Senate side with as many patriots in attendance and willing to give testimony in support of the bill as possible.

I will keep you updated as the bill moves forward and alert you to the meeting of the full MPPS Committee on HB69.

HB 10, the VA Healthcare Freedom Act, passed the full House Commerce & Labor Committee Thursday by 15-4. Three committee members later registered their votes to make the final tally 17-5. Significant in this vote is that three Democrats, Dels. Johnson, Joannou, and Lewis, joined the 14 Republicans on the committee, making this a bi-partisan bill.

Additional action was taken during the committee meeting. HBs 576 and 722, identical to SB 417, were “rolled into,” or merged into, HB 10.

Senate bills to be merged?

On the Senate side, now that three identical bills have passed the Senate, SBs 283, 311, and 417, it remains to be seen how these bills will be merged and under which number. I spoke today with Sen. Quayle, patron of SB 283, Sen. Martin, patron of SB 311, and the legislative aide of Sen. Vogel, patron of SB 417. No clear answer was given, except that tradition often allows the bill to go the senator with the most seniority. So, while we TEA Party Patriots have championed SB 417, it looks likely that it will be rolled into one of the other two bills.

Then we will have the issue of whether HB 10 and the surviving Senate bill will be merged. While they are similar in some respects, they are uniquely different. The Senate bills focus on the individual not being required to purchase health insurance. HB 10 focuses on no law restricting an individual’s right to choose his own health plan or medical services. They each have also been written for different subsections of the Code of Virginia. More later.

Yesterday I had the privilege of being a guest on the Jack Gravely show, the #2 radio talk show in the Richmond area. Mr. Gravely is a veteran broadcaster with over 15 years of experience and the former State Director of the NAACP. He was a great host who asked pointed and relevant questions about the Tea Party. It was a live call-in radio show where we took about 15 questions that were fair and were asked out of genuine concern and curiosity.

As I reflected throughout the day on the radio interview and spoke with others who listened to the broadcast, I found there were lessons to be learned on both sides of the call. Many of the questions asked I expected, but there were a few that I didn’t expect. A sample of the questions [paraphrased] were: 1) Isn’t the Tea Party a racist organization who has a personal vendetta against Obama? 2) Where was the Tea Party during the Bush years? 3) What does the Tea Party stand for? 4) Isn’t the Tea Party just a front for the Republican Party? 5) Is the Tea Party funded by the Republican Party? 6) Do you believe Obama is a citizen of the United States? 7) The Tea Party always says it is going to ‘take our country back,’ who are you taking the country back from? 8 Does the Tea Party support Rush Limbaugh? 9) Do you believe Obama is a socialist? 10) What are your thoughts on the disparity in education in the black community? 11) Did you support TARP? Don’t you think it was necessary in order to ensure our economy didn’t collapse? 12) How can you say this isn’t personal with Obama when we see the caricatures in the news and the Tea Party didn’t exist until Obama was elected president?

As you can see, the questions covered a variety of topics. One thing became evident to me by the end of the interview was that there is genuine concern in the black community about the motives of the Tea Party movement. The perception among many of the callers was that it is simply an Obama-hating movement, and that it is personal. We should continue to reiterate that the primary concern of the Tea Party movement is with the policies put forth by Congress and the President. Most Tea Party supporters I talk to are equally frustrated with the actions of Congress AND the President, the Republicans AND Democrats. There is a reason why the Tea Party is more popular than the Democrat AND Republican Party. Tea Party supporters feel that politicians are solely concerned about power and control and that both sides continue to grow the size of government, spend irresponsibly, accrue enormous debt, and legislate beyond their constitutional authority.

The Tea Party is based on the principles that shaped the founding of our nation and our Constitution. We believe that government derives its power from the people and is established solely to protect these rights. We believe the core principles of limited government, fiscal restraint, personal responsibility, and governing with virtue and accountability are all necessary to ensure the preservation of our freedom. Although we are a very young movement (less than 12 months old), we have come a long way in a short amount of time. We are an organic, grassroots movement that is fueled by the passion and commitment of hard-working, average Americans. We are not Astroturf of a political party, a union, or a corporate industry. We are your mom, dad, employee, colleague, neighbor, and church friend. We are 100% volunteer.

We need to continue to seek opportunities to take our message into communities where the Tea Party has no presence. Richmond Tea Party will be intentional about reaching out to the college community, black community, Spanish community, Republican community, Democratic community, etc. We believe our ideas and values transcend race, religion and partisan politics. What is important about these opportunities is that we go to their community and we share and listen. The last thing we want is for our message to get lost in delivery because of offensive caricatures. We will continue to share with people the mission and message of the Richmond Tea Party, hold Congress and the President accountable on the policies they are promoting that are in direct opposition to freedom, and mobilize individuals to be engaged in the political process at all levels. I’m very excited about what the Tea Party can accomplish in 2010.

Jamie Radtke
President, Richmond Tea Party