April 15, 2009

More than 2,000 protestors rallied at Charlotte City Hall today as part of the Tax Day Tea Party. They were among more than 30 similar protests that were scheduled today across North Carolina and about a dozen in South Carolina. Hundreds more are occurring across the country, fueled by social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as well as conservative radio and TV.

On Tuesday, Charlotte banker Matthew Ridenhour explained why he organized the event. He has never worked on a political campaign. Never given to a political candidate. But fed up with government bailouts and record federal spending, he organized a Tax Day Tea Party expected to draw more than 1,000 people to uptown Charlotte today.

“I was angry,” says Ridenhour, 31. “I just felt somebody had to stand up.”

Duke University political scientist Mike Munger calls it a groundswell. “It's absolutely incredible,” says Munger, a Libertarian who ran for governor last year. “The thing that's odd about it is it's almost exclusively people who otherwise have not participated in politics before.”

But critics such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman say the protests represent less “a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment” than a movement manufactured by conservative groups and fanned by Fox News.

A growing effort

The impetus for today's protests, as for a handful of earlier ones, was a February rant by CNBC pundit Rick Santelli. Evoking Boston's 18th century patriots, he called for a Chicago tea party to protest federal spending and taxes. While Santelli provided the spark, participants say the tinder came from taxpayer anger that has festered at least since last year's federal bailouts.

“People are basically tired of standing in front of their TV screaming,” says Amy Kremer of Atlanta, a coordinator of the National Tax Day Tea Party. “People are starting to come out of the woodwork because they realize we're not alone.”

Tea parties are backed by conservative groups such as FreedomWorks, founded by former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey. The group's Southeastern director, Allen Page, organized an April 4 tea party in Charlotte and is helping put together today's outside the General Assembly in Raleigh.

“People are … at a boiling point,” he says. “Enough is enough.”

Like Ridenhour, however, many organizers describe themselves as first-time activists. One is Sid Morris, who plans to host a tea party at the North Harbor Club he owns in Davidson.

“We just feel we need to do something,” says Morris, 62, a Republican. Some groups like “Fair Tax,” which seeks to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, will try to sign up members today. But there appears to be no common agenda other than reducing taxes and spending.

“Bigger government is not what we need,” says Morris. “We need a better government.”

Myrick in Monroe

The liberal group Media Matters for America says Fox News gave the protests a partisan spin by promoting them as a response to President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget and $787 billion stimulus. Many Republicans have embraced the protests.

The National Republican Congressional Committee Tuesday urged supporters to attend a tea party. Republican U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick of Charlotte plans to speak tonight at a Monroe protest and former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich will headline a tea party in New York.

Melodye Aben, an unaffiliated voter from Raleigh, is statewide coordinator of tea parties in North Carolina. She writes a blog called “A Voice for Moms” that has been critical of Obama policies. But she says anger started with last fall's Wall Street bailouts pushed by George W. Bush. “I have as many problems with the Republican Party as I do with the Democratic Party,” she says.

John Hood, president of the conservative John Locke Foundation, says many of those attending today's rallies will be newcomers to politics. “They make a point of bashing Bush at least as much as Obama,” he says. “This is ‘a pox on both your houses' kind of message.” Although Charlotte's Ridenhour recently got active in the Young Republicans, he says he's not particularly happy with GOP leadership.

“When Bush shoved that (bailout) program down our throats, I was really upset,” he says. “It's certainly not about President Obama's administration. The problem we're facing now is an American problem, not a party problem.”