DAILY NEWS, BOWLING GREEN, KENTUCKY Sunday Reader SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2012 - PAGE 3C From Page 1C Tea party members spending more of their time on local races And there was this, from an ex- In Florida, the state GOP chair right ... and then the local party Air Force man wearing a “Vote. removed the local head of the will move the state and then the Declare Yourself” shirt: “We’re Volusia County Republican Exec- state moves the national. becoming active in things that we utive Committee after a battle “The tea party was an idea that didn’t even think about before this between him and more conserva- people like me, who came from all began ... and we are finding tive Republicans. A tea party nowhere, could get involved ... that our difference is very, very activist is now in charge, and that and you can really make a differ- tall. All they’re doing when they prompted one GOP political con- ence.” call us dead is creating something sultant to write a scathing online In San Antonio, 60-year-old called silent resentment.” column urging Republicans to Baillio now feels the same. Dead the tea party is not. “resist the temptations and blind After the Tax Day rally of Changed? Perhaps. But still very allegiance to ... any group that 2009, he went home, set his tea much alive, in the back room of would be so arrogant as to want to party flag aside and went on with change the party by disrupting it life, keeping up with politics but Jim’s Restaurant in San Antonio and destroying it.” not getting involved. Then he read and many other places across the Still, tea party observers such about a Houston tea party group’s land. as Foley and Skocpol say the call for poll watchers to prevent ••• movement may be here to stay. what they considered possible It screamed onto the scene with The tea party, Foley said, is “in the election fraud. He was trained as a memorable rant by a reporter on fabric of every community. You an election judge and, urged on by the floor of the Chicago Mercan- may not see it, because they’re not a fellow church member who now tile Exchange. Then came the holding signs. But they’re there.” serves as head of the San Antonio giant Tax Day rallies. The jeers at Eric Gay/AP And, she added, “They’re in it Tea Party, began attending his town hall meetings about a still- Robert Stovall, a candidate for Bexar County, Texas, tax assessor-collector, speaks March 20 during a for the long haul.” neighborhood tea party meetings. fledging national health care pro- tea party meeting in San Antonio. ••• Soon enough, he was leading the posal. Protests in Washington, To better grasp the evolution of group. D.C., with Beck, and bus tours the brink of default. It was just well as tea party groups that Hampshire, where Republicans in one example of the strength exert- aligned against him. 2010 won supermajorities in both the movement, simply follow the Today, he and other tea party featuring Sarah Palin. journeys of its people. members have the clout to meet It all culminated with the tide- ed by newly elected tea party Another notable example is in the state House and Senate, a New Hampshire, where tea party recent poll of GOP primary voters In March 2010, Hildy Angius, a privately with elected officials turning elections of 2010, when the Republicans advocating a tough retired public relations specialist, and press them to hold the line on tea party revolution sent new con- no-compromise mantra. Earlier, organizer and former gubernatori- found most saying they no longer drove from her condo in Bullhead city projects, including a proposal servatives to governors’ mansions, they drove House Republican al candidate Jack Kimball was support the tea party movement. City, Ariz., to the huge tea party elected GOP chairman in January That echoes a November Pew to spend millions to build new statehouses and Congress – help- leadership to rewrite a budget bill rally in Searchlight, Nev. – what housing in the downtown core. ing fuel the largest turnover in the to find more spending cuts. 2011 by conservatives. Soon, Research Center poll, which found some called the Woodstock of That Tuesday night in San U.S. House in more than 70 years. Today, tea party activists are GOP presidential hopefuls were waning support nationwide for the conservatism. Then, she was pres- Antonio, three candidates showed But where has the tea party been still hard at work promoting a reaching out to Kimball in that tea party but also in those congres- ident of her local Republican up to court Baillio’s members, since? It’s a common question, conservative ideology at all levels first-in-the-nation primary state. sional districts now represented by women’s club. Now, she serves as including Matt Beebe, a conserva- especially as many saw the GOP of government, in part by target- But Kimball stepped down eight members of the House Tea Party vice chair of the Mohave County tive newcomer taking on the presidential campaign unfolding ing longtime GOP incumbents months later amid infighting with Caucus. Republican Party and is running speaker of the Texas House in the without any meaningful tea party deemed not conservative enough. the state’s top Republican elected In Indiana, a video popped up for county supervisor. state’s primary. Beebe credited tea influence. Sure, there was a Tea Take this year’s congressional leaders, who questioned his abili- on YouTube urging voters to “I think we realized that just party groups like Baillio’s for Party Express rally last fall in New races. Though no one expects the ty to manage the organization and reject tea party candidates to the getting together ... and yelling and paving the way for more conserv- Hampshire, featuring most of the type of gains seen in 2010, nation- raise funds. Madison County Republican screaming wasn’t going to do ative candidates to seek office. Republican presidential hopefuls. al tea party-related groups are There have been other signs of Party in that state’s May primary, anything,” the 52-year-old Angius “The tea party ... has provided a And, later, that same group co- backing candidates in vital races backlash against the tea party, both telling viewers: “If you care about said. “The best thing is to get backdrop where the opportunity sponsored a debate with CNN. as part of an effort to not only within the GOP establishment and the real Republican Party, you involved at the local level in the to beat an entrenched incumbent Still, so-called “umbrella” keep GOP control of the House among the public at large. In New must act now before it’s too late.” party. Move the local party to the exists,” he said. organizations such as the Tea but possibly gain control of the Party Express, the Tea Party Patri- Senate and move Congress more ots, FreedomWorks and others to the right. haven’t, to date, put their names Already, in what some have behind any one candidate. And dubbed the first upset of 2012, an only in recent weeks have tea incumbent congresswoman in party darlings such as U.S. Sens. Ohio has fallen to a tea party- Marco Rubio of Florida and Mike backed challenger in that state’s Lee of Utah finally weighed in – primary. Still to come are the two endorsing likely nominee Mitt high-profile primaries featuring Romney, the former Massachu- tea party targets Orrin Hatch of setts governor whom some see as Utah and Richard Lugar of Indi- un-tea-party-like as one could be, ana, the two most senior Republi- in part because of his state’s own can members of the Senate. health care reform law. FreedomWorks, a Washington, Some local tea party groups (in D.C.-based group that provides Massachusetts, for example) have both money and training for tea divided over divergent priorities – party activists and candidates, has whether to make conservative spent $650,000 opposing Hatch, economic principles or conserva- whom the group calls “the con- tive social issues paramount. Oth- summate Washington insider” ers, such as the Tennessee Tea with a record that “is decidedly Party, have disbanded altogether. opposed to the goals of the tea In researching her recent book, party” – in part because he voted “The Tea Party and the Remaking for the Wall Street bailout in 2008. of Republican Conservatism,” The 78-year-old Hatch, first Harvard professor Theda Skocpol elected in 1976, faces several chal- found that about 1,000 local tea lengers at Saturday’s GOP state party groups formed in 2009- convention. It was at that meeting 2010. Today, she estimates there two years ago that tea party mem- are about 600. A declining num- bers notched their first congres- ber, yes, but still what Skocpol, an sional victory, defeating three-term expert on civic engagement, calls Republican Sen. Bob Bennett. “a very good survival rate.” Lugar, who like Hatch is seek- “They’re not dressing up and ing a seventh term, may face a big- going to demonstrations in the ger threat in his May 8 primary. street. They’re meeting. They’re State Treasurer Richard Mourdock poring over the legislative records has been endorsed by a coalition of these Republicans that they’ve of Indiana tea party groups called elected. They’re contacting their Hoosiers for a Conservative Sen- representatives, and they’re keep- ate but also by national organiza- ing the pressure on.