Reply #8: Judgment Day looms for Georgia’s tea party movement [View All]

3:00 pm April 17, 2010, by Jim Galloway

Signs abounded at last week’s tea party in downtown Atlanta that the movement has peaked – at least in Georgia.

Despite the beautiful weather, the recent passage of the health care package in Washington, and the lure of a “young Elvis” impersonator, the crowd was roughly half the size of last year’s event.

Fox News, anchor of the larger Tax Day rallies here and elsewhere, seemed to anticipate the waning energy. Last year, the network dispatched its rock star, Sean Hannity, to capture the erupting anger in Atlanta. This year, Fox sent the efficient but less magnetic Neal Cavuto.

Last year’s Fox coverage was wall-to-wall, extending deep into the night. On Thursday evening, Bill O’Reilly’s attention was focused on that Russian kid whose adopted parents had given him a one-way ticket back to the Old Country.

“It’s time for the tea party people to move onto the next level,” said Erick Erickson of RedState.com, a Georgia-based political blog designed to keep conservatives across the country stirred up. After a year of shouting, he said, the movement needs to start showing measurable results.

Ask any divorce attorney – anger is a difficult emotion to keep stoked, day after day after day. And novelty, by definition, is a perishable commodity.

But there is another reason that the tea party movement may have trouble laying down long-term roots. Tea parties make Republicans in Georgia just as uncomfortable as Democrats in Washington.

For each of their two Tax Day rallies in Atlanta, tea party organizers have chosen the state Capitol as a venue. The building provides a dramatic backdrop for television, especially after sunset.

But last week, most of the people inside the Capitol declined to mix with the people outside. Gov. Sonny Perdue was elsewhere. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle was down in south Georgia for a barbecue. House Speaker David Ralston remained on the third floor, working.

Of 13 candidates for governor, only state Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) attended the Atlanta rally. He remained behind the stage and did not speak.

Like any fresh movement, the tea party enthusiasts see things in black and white. Us versus them. But government is a gray thing, even when controlled by Republicans. Us and them are often thrown together in a jumbled heap, impossible to pull apart.

A day before the Atlanta tea party, a majority of the 236 lawmakers inside the Capitol approved a measure that patched together a $17.8 billion state budget. It contained a $216 million hospital bed tax, a $90 million increase in various fees charged by the state, and – for the benefit of GOP lawmakers — $387 million in tax cuts that will be delayed until better times.

Deferred tax cuts have become the Republican version of deficit spending in the Legislature. The matter of what state services are to be cut as a result will be left to future legislators.

The governor had condemned a previous attempt to attach a future tax cut to the hospital bed tax, but he was in on the creation of this one. The budget deal is the kind of sausage that is essential to government, but difficult to explain on the stump.

And so the only legislators eager to appear at the Atlanta tea party were those who voted against it.

“I stood up and said no, I don’t want to come down to Atlanta and raise taxes,” Preston Smith (R-Rome) told a cheering crowd. “As a result of that, my position as chairman of the senate judiciary committee was stripped away from me. And I say, so be it.”

Smith cited the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Doobie Brothers’ “Takin’ It to the Street” as historic precedents.

Judson Hill (R-Marietta) also voted against the tax cut/tax hike package, but did not make an issue of his stand from the stage.

Before the crowd disappeared, the organizers of the Atlanta tea party set their own future measure of success. They endorsed a number of candidates for office.

Two tea party endorsements were made in Republican congressional races – Tom Graves of Ranger in the 9th District contest on May 11 replace Nathan Deal, and Clay Cox of Lilburn in the 7th District rush to fill the shoes of John Linder on July 20.

These will be the tests that could very well determine whether tea party activists intend to remain a force in Georgia, or will be judged a group of well-intentioned citizens who — once a year — know how to throw a lively bash.

http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/04/17/judgment-day-looms-for-georgias-tea-party-movement/