Tea Party Networking

           The grassroots tea party movement has spread across the country even though it has been largely ignored by the government and mainstream media. On Independence Day morning I was on the capitol campus in Olympia, Washington with four or five hundred fellow conservatives. Since the blogosphere regularly covers the Tea Party movement, I wanted to take a different tack today.

I showed up early that morning, families and small groups were still arriving. I walked by the several booths, noting the various items and petitions and generally taking in the pleasant atmosphere of blue sky and people. Gradually I made my way to the far side where the sound man sat in the sun behind his controls. Experience has taught me that the sound guy usually knows what is going on, but in this case he didn’t have a speaker list or knowledge of names. Pointing to a man on the other side of the plaza he said, “He has the list.”

Off I went, back through the crowd. When I stood before him I introduced myself and asked, “Who is scheduled to speak?”

He hesitated and asked me why I wanted to know. I explained that I’m a conservative blogger and wanted to cover the event.

“There is only one copy of the program.” He looked down at a sheet in his hand.

“Can I see it? Make some notes?”

He said that the day was a people’s event and that there were no politicians or big name individuals.

“That’s fine, but...”Organizer welcomes the crowd

“I have to get to the podium and get things started.”

I’m sure he was busy, but the conversation left me perplexed. Fifteen minutes later, as he welcomed the crowd, I moved to a shady and spot to watch and listen.

The first speaker was Shelly Taylor, a good speaker, actress and co-founder of Property Owners for Predictable Tax Now . She spoke in support of limiting property tax and taxes in general. Taxes are an important issue to conservatives and she was certainly someone with pertinent information.

The next speaker, Phillip Latarp (I hope I’ve spelled his name right, but again, I have no list of speakers), from The Peoples Amendment, explained why it is critical to stop excessive government spending. Again, this is a critical issue to conservatives and he was certainly knowledgeable.

Speaker after speaker came to the podium and was introduced. As would be expected, all of them, that I heard, were politically involved conservatives. All of them asked people to get involved and help out. As I listened, I wondered why the organizer didn’t print out hundreds of copies of the speaker list.

Yes, the Tea Party movement has been maligned by the mainstream media and ignored by most elected officials, but that is all the more reason to do publicity and networking correctly. Before the event, send out a press release to both the mainstream media and the blogosphere. Describe the purpose of the event and list the speakers. Invite sympathetic journalists and bloggers. Print a program, list the speakers, their websites, postal and email addresses. It’s fine to have a “people’s event,” but if we are going to change the course of national events we must do much more.