Among the swirl of red Todd Young T-shirts, white-haired old ladies and overweight men stretching denim to its finest fiber, I stood out like a hand grenade in a field of daisies.
The Clark County Tea Party Patriots are fed up. They’re coordinating their efforts, and I couldn’t help but attend one of their meetings.
I made my way over to Sellersburg Middle School where, ironically, the Clark County Tea Party Patriots got together to moan about being taxed in a building that was paid for with their tax dollars. The sun had just set, and I was ready to watch the blood-sucking get underway.
I arrived just in time to hear Don Fitzgerald, an Independent candidate for Sherriff in Jefferson County, desperately trying to gain support from the crowd.
I say “desperately” because he was preaching to a room full of people who can’t legally vote for him.
He was in the wrong state. What’s depressing about Fitzgerald is he stands absolutely no chance of winning in November. This is because he may actually be somewhat honest.
When answering a question from the crowd, asking if he would permit a methadone clinic in his county, he blinked for a moment and then quickly told the story of his brother kicking a heroin addiction with the help of the treatment.
Anyone with this sort of brash honesty and disregard for apprehension is destined to get annihilated in the cutthroat world that is our local political arena.
Next came time to attack Clark County Sheriff Danny Rodden.
Members of the crowd took turns criticizing the elected official and described my county’s jail as a luxurious winter home for inmates — where they sit by the open fire and discuss their investments in foreign markets.
“They get free dental care,” someone woofed. “When I went on a tour, I saw them drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes,” another cried.
I suppose they have a point. We could save ourselves money by treating inmates like the labor camps of early the Soviet Union.
Then came the passionate cries of Sandy Scott, who told the story of Wayne Bell, the publisher of Really Big Coloring Books.
His publishing company, which produces a coloring book called “The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids,” began receiving threatening messages from angry wingnuts who called the book propaganda for children.
“They’re trying to stop us from teaching our children America’s history,” she howled. She walked off the stage in tears and gathered her composure shortly thereafter.
This brings me to the one question I didn’t get answered that night. Who exactly is the Tea Party fed up with?
Well, it’s no surprise it’s the democrats.
To give the Tea Party credit, in the beginning, it actually was a grassroots movement.
Unfortunately, the movement has been hi-jacked by neoconservatives who saw the movement as another avenue to push their agenda onward, and it’s going to work.
Some critical political victories are surely going to be eked out in November because blood-thirsty GOP vampires like Karl Rove and Dick Armey, saw opportunity in the grassroots movement to fuel their political agenda and sink their teeth into it.
It’s a shame. Grassroots movements have the potential to challenge authority and force the government to listen.
But, like apologizing, it only truly works when you’re sincere.
The Tea Party has lost that sincerity. They’ll cast their votes for their candidates on Nov. 2 and watch them walk into the hands of the same vampires that hijacked their own movement.
I just hope they remember that after their candidate wins and the members of the Tea Party notice the fangs behind their candidate’s smile — that it was their own blood that helped fuel the victory.
By MATT CHINN
Website Editor
mchinn@imail.iu.edu