Top Five Things to Do for Local Tea Party Groups in 2013

After the rousing success of our meeting last Thursday, I have had a number of political figures contact me.

Disaffected Republicans…

Ron Paul Liberty groups…

Other Tea Party groups…

It seems our message of zero tolerance towards bad elected officials of both parties and state nullification is resonating with people. This is a similar situation that started the original tea party movement in 2009 with a lot of new people sick enough of what is happening to their country to want to take action.

We will be having a meeting next week to organize our efforts. We have a lot to do…and if you are ready to really get in the fight, stay tuned for our upcoming meeting. We will be able to assign some specific tasks next week.

We’ve learned a lot over the past three years here in Roanoke fighting this fight…hopefully this time we can help people avoid some of the pitfalls that many fell into over the past few years. Here is the Top Five Things to Do for Local Tea Party Groups in 2013.

1. Focus on action:

People are angry and scared and frustrated. If you don’t offer something different, people will quickly tune you out. If the answer is going to be help corrupt Republicans beat even more corrupt Democrats in upcoming elections, that message will quickly get tuned out. If that is what your tea party is about, then why don’t you just join the GOP?

Focus on things like booting out incumbents and state nullification. If there are 30 GOP governors out there, shouldn’t they become the focal point for resistance to destruction of our Republic? I don’t know about you, but I am tired of calling/e-mailing my no account Congressmen and Senators and begging them to help. All you will get back are cookie cutter responses and excuses.  Followed by a fund raising letter telling me how my Congressman is fighting for me…when I know damn well he is not.

Tea Party groups have the lead the way on change. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result…then we are crazy to keep doing what we are doing.

2. Focus on Principles

Everyone knows that this nation is falling apart. But many individuals and groups don’t get any deeper in their analysis of the situation than “Obama stinks.” Well there is no doubt Obama is a communist at heart with tyrannical intent, Obama doesn’t have a patent on violating the Constitution. The main political issue our nation faces is that politicians don’t follow the founder’s principles and we let them get away with it.

• Our national political principles are written in the Declaration of Independence and revolve around our God given rights and that government’s role is to protect those rights. Government should be subservient to the people, not the other way around.
• The Constitution is the document that was created to keep the Federal government constrained so they didn’t violate your rights.

When we stray from these principles…we will inevitably fail as a nation. Staying focused on principles has a lot of benefits. But mostly it makes it easier to understand issues. If you look at issues through a prism of natural rights and whether legislative solutions fits into the Constitution, it becomes much easier to see what is the right thing (or wrong thing) to do.

Is the general deterioration of moral and ethical standards part of this issue? Certainly. Messed up people are making messed up decisions on politics due to ignorance and a lack of a moral compass.

But how can we be examples of correct behavior unless we know the principles and take them seriously? So understand the principles, stick by them and make them the political flag you will die besides. Because blind trust in a party or an individual is a sure recipe for disaster.

3. Don’t Let Republicans Use You.

Republican candidates and officials generally only care about 2 things. Getting elected and staying elected. They will generally say or do anything to get elected. They will hold your hand and tell you everything you want to hear about fighting for liberty. And then they will go and do whatever is most politically expedient if they win election.

Republicans bank on the fact that most Conservatives are too busy living their lives to micro-manage what should be doing in Washington or Richmond. Republicans bank on the fact you will vote for them, even if they fail you, because you abhor their Democrat opponent enough to forgive any bad votes they might make.

It’s time for a zero tolerance policy for elected officials’ bad behavior. And to do that you have to maintain a separation between your tea party group and the Republican Party. Our board members are not allowed to be members of any political party. We work with Republicans and candidates who support our principles, but we MUST maintain a separation so we can hold them to account when they DON’T support the principles.

4. Be Distrustful of Large Groups Trying To Represent “The Tea Party.”

There are several national organizations that say THEY represent the tea party. The Roanoke Tea Party is not officially part of any of these organizations. We receive no direction from these groups. Interestingly, they never ask US what we think or how are doing either. Yet they all claim to be representative of our organization.

The same is true of the Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation (VTPP) We were once a member, but the Roanoke Tea Party was expelled because our efforts to talk about nullification in 2010 were deemed too dangerous for other tea party groups to hear. The individual tea party groups in the federation (with a few exceptions) do good work. But leadership of this group are way too cozy with the Republican Party and have, for large measure, have become the personal political lackeys for former VTPP President and Senate Candidate Jamie Radkte.

Jamie is a perfect example of how Republicans use the Tea Party for their own personal political ambitions. Jamie was working on a plan to forward her political ambitions and the Tea party movement created the perfect vehicle.  We have two eye witnesses where Jamie discussed how she was looking for such a vehicle, just as the Tea Party movement exploded in 2009. She managed to find her way into a leadership position in the Richmond Tea Party (some would say in an underhanded way) and pulled together the state federation.

I never heard her express an interest in her own political career in those early meetings.

The 2010 State Tea Party Convention was specifically manipulated by Jamie to give a boost to her plans to run for the U.S. Senate. And that is about the time we ran afoul of Jamie and federation leadership. Our attempts to showcase her underhanded tactics were rewarded with expulsion from the federation.

If you are interested in how Jamie Radkte operates, click the link Analysis of the RTP VTPP Expulsion for a copy of the RTP expulsion from the federation and our analysis of it. I find it humorous that a document from a prospective national level candidate could be so amateurish. But in retrospect, getting booted from the Federation was a blessing as it forced the Roanoke Tea Party to forge an independent stance that has served us well since. But for the future, it would be good to work in concert.

But if there is going to be a federation of tea party groups, it will have to be a true federation, run by the grassroots and rooted in principles. If Virginia tea party groups have finally tired of the VTPP Federation and being used for Jamie and her wing of the Republican Party, we’d love to work with them. But if Tea Party groups are just going to be an extension of the GOP, what’s the point?

5. Be Independent, Local and Be Willing To Criticize Republicans

Grassroots movements have to be grassroots. The Roanoke Tea Party have planted tea party groups around SWVA. But we don’t get involved in their day to day operations. Each area has individual issues. They have to develop leadership. The Roanoke Tea Party has some resources that can help a group get off the ground and we are happy to help. But local issues in Roanoke are going to be different than local issues in other areas. Don’t ever lose site that this is YOUR movement. And don’t lose site that most local Republican meetings are smaller and less organized than most Tea Party meetings I attend. A lot of the power of the Republican Party is perception. In many areas they are weak, ineffectual and would be irrelevant if candidates didn’t feel they needed an “R” behind their names to get elected.

Don’t get sucked in by friendly republican leaders. Some of them will be helpful. Some will not. But if you can’t criticize them because you are too cozy, you aren’t doing it right. And you won’t be able to grow the grassroots.

But it takes money, people and organization to be independent

Without funding, you can’t advertise. Without people you have no clout. Without organization it all falls apart quickly.

You have to find ways to attract people to your meetings and make them part of your organization. It doesn’t take a lot of money to have an impact though. Planting homemade signs on issues, distributing fliers at events, social media letters to the editor, protests and sign waving activities are all low cost activities that can keep your group vibrant and can resonate with people.

If tea party groups can stay focused on solutions and principles and out of the shirt pockets of Republicans, there are a lot of people that will come back…this time. And finding independent sources of money that are more interested in saving the Republic then getting favors from their bought and sold officials would also be nice.

The answers are there if we have the courage to look for them.

Chip Tarbutton