The Tax Day Tea Party protest, held on the sidewalk along Kalispell’s Depot Park April 15, drew more demonstrators than the previous year’s rally, with a cacophony of honking car horns, hand-made signs, flags reading “Don’t Tread on Me” billowing in the spring breeze, and the cheers and chatter of 200 to 300 Tea Partiers.
More than one year in, Linda Johnson, part of the Northwest Montana Patriots, said Tea Partiers feel “more emboldened,” about making their voices heard against the overreach they see by the federal government. She was in Washington D.C. for the massive Sept. 12 rally there, an experience she described as “incredible.”
“They’re not listening to us and this is how we show our frustration,” Johnson said. “They can’t spend and tax their way out of whatever they’re trying to do.”
The Kalispell Tea Party rally defied many of the broader characterizations of the movement portrayed in national media. There were certainly people holding aloft angry signs, with slogans like, “We spent too much of tomorrow today,” and “Obamacare makes me sick or dead.” But no one was dressed as a colonial revolutionary, and the overall atmosphere was joyful and boisterous. Tea Partiers, ranging in age from senior citizens to children, conversed and laughed.
Jean Pouliot, a Marine in his dress uniform, waved a sign alongside everyone else.
“I’m disappointed by where the country’s going,” Pouliot, of West Glacier, said. “The government is turning toward socialism, a socialistic government instead of Democratic.”
“I thought I’d put my red, white and blues on for a good cause,” he added. “I can’t think of a better way to make a statement.”
Over the course of the last year the Tea Party demonstrations across the country have drawn the admiration, scorn and interest of millions of Americans as this loose confederation of activists has made abundantly clear their deep opposition with the direction of the federal government on issues ranging from the deficit to the overhaul of health care.
A widely discussed poll by the New York Times and CBS News reported last week that the 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be wealthier and better educated than the general public; hold views more conservative than Republicans generally; and feel a deep disapproval toward the job President Barack Obama is doing on issues like the economy, health care and the federal budget deficit. According to the report, more than half of Tea Party supporters say Obama’s policies favor the poor, and 25 percent believe the administration favors blacks over whites.
But as the movement enters its first election year it remains a mystery to political observers of every persuasion what the concrete impacts of the Tea Party will eventually be. The grassroots, decentralized nature of the Tea Party movement gives it strength, yet makes it nearly impossible for the group to speak with a unified voice on specific issues.
Nor is it clear whether the Tea Party Patriots represent a genuinely new force in American politics, or are simply a vocal group of conservative voters who disapprove of the policies of a Democratic president.
According to Jim Lopach, chair of the political science department at the University of Montana, with typically low voter turnout among the American public, any movement that draws new voters into politics wields power.
“This movement, I think, is energizing the truly independent and the nonvoters and bringing them into the electorate,” Lopach said. “Anything that brings independents into the electorate is really significant – they’re absolutely necessary to win an election.”
Judging by the Kalispell rally, the Tea Party appears to be drawing some new voters, along with those who have previously voted Republican and will continue to do so.
Standing on the sidewalk, 22-year-old Rachel Wallette, who described herself as “mainly a conservative Republican,” said she didn’t vote in the last election, but now wishes she had after witnessing what has transpired over the last year.
“Anybody that voted for the stimulus package I will not support,” she said. “People are going to have to rise up against the government.”
Yet a few feet north, Joanna King, a retired political consultant who said she “escaped from California,” described herself as a Ronald Reagan Republican. She held a sign reading, “Clean the House and Senate, vote to change the Congress.”
“I’d like to see the people that are in power now see that we have the ability to coalesce to make a difference and ultimately, I’d like to take back the government,” King said. “Our forefathers would be spinning in their graves if they saw what was going on.”
Asked whether the Tea Party should form its own political party, King said she thought that would be “the kiss of death,” for the movement. None of the dozen Tea Partiers interviewed for this story indicated an intention to form a third political party, which means the two major political parties must now contend with this new force in the electorate.
The rise of the Tea Parties appears to favor Republicans’ prospects in this year’s elections, but Lopach thinks the Republicans could become co-opted by the Tea Partiers and alienate moderate voters if the GOP starts, “to be defined as an anti-government party.”
“Democrats are fearful of the same thing,” Lopach added, “but fearful that the Tea Party is going to strengthen the Republican Party.”
The Kalispell Tea Party had a small number of people holding signs representing controversial beliefs. One man held a sign reading “Where’s the birth certificate?” and another’s read, “Indict the Kenyan,” references to the untrue belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., and is therefore ineligible to hold the office. Johnson fretted that the tiny minority of such signs would negatively stereotype the entire demonstration.
“That’s stupid,” she said. “They’ll take that one sign and make us all look bad.”
A woman distributed literature for the Oath Keepers, a growing group composed mainly of ex-law enforcement officers who pledge to resist the overreaching they perceive by the federal government.
Montana Democratic Party Chairman Jim Elliott said he sees the Tea Parties as a mix of voters with real concerns, along with those trying to capitalize on those fears and concerns common to any recession for their own motives.
“In any economic downturn there is worry about the future and what’s coming down the road for individuals and families,” Elliott said. “There are people who participate in the Tea Party who have very legitimate concerns that have not been adequately answered, but there is also an element of the Tea Party that is taking advantage of those concerns for their own far right political agenda.”
State Republican Party Chairman Will Deschamps sees the Tea Party movement as one that could ultimately benefit the GOP and the national political conversation, but that refuses to be drawn into the tent of one party or another.
“I think the Democratic Party is frightened; they see a train wreck coming for them,” Deschamps said. “We’ve tried to reach out to them, but the Tea Party is an eclectic group; they don’t want to be associated with one party or another and that’s fine.”
“I think the Tea Party’s probably one of the most helpful things that’s ever come around, it’s getting people off the couch,” Deschamps said. “In the long run I think it’s going to help the conservatives and the Republican Party.”
The question of whether the direction of conservative politics is led by the Republican Party or the Tea Party looks to be a central factor in this year’s elections at every level. And the outcome depends on whom you ask.
“I believe that the Republican Party is starting to move toward Tea Party principles,” Skip Gilmore, of the Bigfork Tea Party, said at the Kalispell rally. “We’re hoping the effect is the politicians, no matter what party they’re in, start moving toward our principles and our values, instead of trying to drag us toward theirs.”