Michelle Malkin

Are Tea Parties losing steam?

Nope. Read Donald Kent Douglas at Pajamas Media

Yet, here’s the thing: Actually, the tea parties have hardly lost steam. Indeed, the country witnessed some of the most substantial anti-Obama rallies at exactly the same time of Weigel’s writing. Tea partiers mounted two separate days of large demonstrations this month. On Independence Day, patriots from around the country took time away from family, friends, and food to attend anti-tax demonstrations. Turnout was substantial. In Tulare, California, 15,000 demonstrators attended a massive tea party rally in the Central Valley heartland. And in Texas, as Michelle Malkin reported, a truly phenomenal 37,000 protesters attended a “ten-gallon tea party” in Dallas.

Protesters mobilized again on July 17th. According to Altlanta’s WXIA-TV, the “‘Tea Party Patriots,’ as they call themselves, staged 254 similar protests across the nation, 37 in Georgia.” Oh sure, none of these events reached “ten-gallon” proportions. But the opposition is increasingly focused. And with good turnout of upwards of 250 protesters at some events, the day’s activities were another big success for the movement.

But the July 17 demonstrations were noteworthy beyond their numbers. Protesters rallied against the Democratic “public option” health care reform that’s been dubbed “ObamaCare.” Event organizers held demonstrations at congressional offices, and thus real constituency pressure was brought to bear (in contrast to the earlier less-targeted attacks on the Obama administration as “socialist”). The response from Democratic officials ranged from unsympathetic to outright hostile. Most notoriously, staffers for Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill reportedly flipped protesters the bird while locking the doors, pulling the blinds, and calling the police. Indeed, demonstrators were ultimately forced off public property while rallying at the office of their representative to the United States Senate!