The Polite Sacramento Tea Party
The tax day Tea Party held at the state capitol in Sacramento was a bustling event, attended by colorful, patriotic and well-mannered people from all walks of life. No angry outbursts… no fights… just thousands and thousands of very polite taxpaying citizens.
The “angry, bitter, militant tea party protestors” so commonly reported about in the mainstream and liberal media were nowhere to be found, at least during the hours I attended.
tea party sign
Families spread out blankets and picnics, retired couples brought their red and blue lawn chairs and thousands of Independents, Republicans and Democrats listened to the speakers, enthusiastically cheering at the anti-tax sound bites.
Independent tea party sign
Political candidates held court off the the side of the capitol at tables and in tents. Ballot initiative campaigners were present as well, with volunteers handing out leaflets, fliers and gathering signatures.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association made a splash with a Declaration of Taxpayer rights, signed by more than 15,000 “virtual” marchers via the HJTA website, delivered to Governor Schwarzenegger.
The signs were creative, funny, mad-as-hell and on-message. My favorite? As tough as the choice was, “Party like a bailed out banker” takes the cake.
The only tea party protestor that I saw was this fellow, who thinks that “Obama cares,” and that “90% of taxpayers got a tax cut in 2009.” 
The aggressive network and liberal cable television media campaign to marginalize the Tea Parties with reports of extremists, militants, racists, and angry mob-like tea partiers, doesn’t appear to be working. It is apparent that liberals really don’t understand the Tea Party movement, or the motivation behind it. This group today was almost identical to last years’ — working men and women who took time out from their busy lives to demonstrate support for shrinking the size of government, reducing taxes and getting America back to its constitutional roots.
And then, they clean up after themselves, and go back to work. 
– Katy Grimes
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I guess crashtheteaparty.org couldn’t get enough support to crash this party. Too bad. I know the real TEA Partiers are looking forward to those clashes.
And where were all these people when Bush/Cheney turned a budget surplus into a massive deficit, when Bush/Cheney wasted billions on an unnecessary war in Iraq (which even Tom McClintock now admits was a mistake), and trashed the Constitution with wiretapping and God knows what else?
Oh, I forgot, it was OK for Bush/Cheney to do all of this because they are “conservatives.”
I don’t care if the Tea Baggers behaved themselves this time and didn’t issue any death threats. (There may have been a few racist or hateful signs that you ignored, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.) The truth is the vast majority of them either don’t want to hear the facts (like the 90 percent of them who got tax cuts this year) or are out-and-out hypocrites.
Stevefromsacto is right that, like me, those folks should have opposed Bush’s murderous, Depression-causing wars from the getgo, along with his wiretapping, torture, Guantanamo, etc. But better late than never.
And, Steve, where are the Moveon.org types, who rightly blasted Bush for his wars, etc., now that their idol Obama is in power and expanding Bush’s wars, wiretaps, etc.?
Both sides — the left-wing anti-war, anti-Bush types and the Tea Partiers — need to get together to oppose the Bush-Obama wars that are unconstitutional and have bankrupted us. Let’s first stop the wars and bring the troops home. Then we can argue about whether to use the saved trillions for tax cuts or new domestic programs.
— John Seiler
For the record Steve, there were no hateful signs, no racist signs, and not even any obvious infiltrators. The signs were clever, funny, poignant, and some expressed irony very well. I’ll post more pics.
As for the 90% tax cut in 2009, who exactly received that one? Did we just increase the number of welfare recipients? In a company of 100 employees, not one person received a tax cut and instead, had their State, and SDI increased in 2009.
-Katy Grimes
stevefromsacto:
I don’t know who told you that Bush/Cheney were conservatives but I am sure that you did not hear that from a conservative.
Bush got elected and re-elected not because he was conservative, but because he was ‘less worse’ than the democrat offerings.
Katy,
We didn’t receive $250 tax rebates in 2009? Gee, I wonder where the check came from? Oh, I forgot, President Obama did that, so it doesn’t count.
I’m glad to hear there were no racist signs and that everyone behaved admirably, Katy. You must admit that was quite an improvement over some of the previous Tea Party rallies. But I still maintain that a large number of these folks only became deficit hawks when President Obama was elected.
John, I cannot speak for Moveon.org. I often have differences of opinion with them. However, there is no evidence that President Obama has in any way “expanded Bush’s…wiretaps.” That’s a bit of a low blow.
I was there and it was a good event, much like last year’s event. There was not a single racist or hateful sign. I tried to find one because I knew it would be used as an example.