Tea Partiers Plan "People's Surge"
Tea Party Activists heading into Washington, D.C. on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to convince lawmakers to vote ‘no’ on the healthcare bill will find that they have more than one way to get their Tea Party fix.
Tea Party Activists heading into Washington, D.C. on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to convince lawmakers to vote ‘no’ on the healthcare bill will find that they have more than one way to get their Tea Party fix. In an email sent out at 4:35 pm on Saturday March 13th, the Tea Party Express (paid for by the Our Country Deserves Better PAC) announced that several speakers who are popular with the Tea Party crowds be speaking in Taft Park, across from Capitol Hill:
March 16, 2010 at 10:00 AM EST
Capitol Hill, Taft Park, Washington D.C.
Speakers Include: Congressman Mike Pence, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Congressman Tom Price, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, Congressman Joe Wilson, Congressman Phil Gingrey, Amy Kremer of Tea Party Express, Tim Phillips of American for Prosperity, Jim Martin of 60 Plus, Matt Patterson of the National Center for Policy Analysis
The event will be running parallel to the March 16th “People’s Surge” in Washington, which had already been promoted on the FreedomWorks website. The event at Taft Park is billed as a chance for activists to meet up at the Cannon office building before being prepped to start “storming the three House Office Buildings: Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn.”
Linda Dupere, a self-described Tea Party activist, decided to go online and take the initiative to promote the March 16th gathering the Tea Party Nation website as well, “I had been online for two months, saying that if we should march on D.C. it should be now…not wait for Tax Day, it should be now.” Dupere’s event description doesn’t refer to the House office buildings, she’s was more interested in getting the word out that people should be in D.C. on the 16th.
Diana Reimer, an activist listed as one of the organizers for the People’s Surge, was not too concerned that other groups seemed to be stepping in for the 16th, “What can I say? It’s kind of organic, we’re all on the same page. We planned our event and they came in, and hey, it gives people a choice.”
Tea Party Nation sent out its own email as well, announcing that it was planning a meet up across from the Cannon office building. as opposed to at it:
Join us in Washington DC for a special day of (non-violent) political action
9am sharp, East Capitol Lawn across from Cannon House Office Building, Washington DC
(the lawn between the Capitol and the Supreme Court Building, Independence Avenue SE and New Jersey SE)
Dress well, be polite, and be ready to look your Congressman in the eye and tell them that our liberty is not theirs to take. We will treat them with the respect they have not (yet) shown us. And, by the end of the day, each of them will know - personally - what their vote will mean to the country, to us, and to themselves.
The comments on “dressing well” and “being polite” strike a slightly different tone from FreedomWork’s plans for “storming” the office buildings. They have a separate R.S.V.P. page as well.
This is likely to only be a sampling of the events being planned for Tuesday. Tea Party Patriots seems to be anticipating that they will have to work to stand out, as their email states:
Volunteers will also be handing out information at the Cannon Building location. We do have a bullhorn.