RSS Feed MenuA crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 Tea Partiers gathered on Capitol Hill for an afternoon rally to protest the Democrats’ health care legislation, a figure far short of the organizers’ expected turnout of 15,000.
When only about eighty people turned out for the morning protest and ‘storming’ of the Senate office buildings, Jenny Beth Martin, a national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots said that she expected upwards of 15,000 protestors in the afternoon. FrumForum was on the scene, and estimated only a few thousand in attendance.
Much like the morning protest, those assembled told FrumForum that they were on Capitol Hill to combat the healthcare legislation currently in the Senate.
“I’m answering the call at high noon for healthcare. I’ve been to every tea party, every town hall I could, protesting at pro-healthcare rallies… this is wrong. It’s not what is in the Constitution. They’re not representing us. They’re not listening,” said Whitney Riley from Sparks, Maryland.
“We came out today over the health bill… we have family members that live in other countries and have similar [government] health plans. It’s totally a disaster. They just can’t understand why we’re being so stupid,” said Bill McCormick of North Carolina.
Alongside the protest being held on stage, a disturbing anti-abortion protest took place nearby. A man dressed as the Grim Reaper pretended to whip three individuals dressed as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama, all covered in fake blood. It appeared to be the same protestors that had held a similar protest on the Hill in October.
The Tea Party protest appeared to have occurred with relatively little organization, with activists following news of rallies online and showing up. That said, a few groups play a role in spreading the word regarding protests and rallies. Of note are Freedom Works, the group founded by Dick Armey and sponsor of the Tea Party Documentary, as well as the Tea Party Patriots, a website that helps list local tea parties.
“There’s no formal membership required,” said Mark Meckler, a coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, of the tea party movement.
Meckler continued by pointing out that top-down organization was relatively minimal in the movement: “There’s no centralized fundraising. We fundraise on a project by project basis, and the projects are always proposed by the grassroots, rather than from our organization. And, [the Tea Party Patriots] are all volunteers.”
Flickr: More FrumForum Pictures from the Afternoon Protests
Tea Party Rendition of Twelve Days of Christmas:
teabag // Dec 15, 2009 at 6:30 pm
This is a Dick Armey astroturf setup. Just watch Faux news state there were 100,000 there later tonight.
teabag // Dec 15, 2009 at 6:49 pm
“Meckler psyched up the crowd–which grew to around 60 people as members trickled into Senate offices–by giving bigger and bigger estimates of the 9/12 march’s attendance. “We put over a million people in D.C. on Sept. 12,” said Meckler. “How many of you were here? So you know, really, roughly 2 million people out here and they didn’t listen to us.”
Next it will be 3 million people! In fact there were about 150,000 on 9/12 and that was after Fox pumped the thing for 2 weeks. Tea party liars.
mlloyd // Dec 15, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Man, white people sure are angry.
sinz54 // Dec 15, 2009 at 8:19 pm
With the Dems’ 60 vote majority in the Senate, there’s nothing that Republicans can do to derail health care reform. Meaning that there’s no one for these Tea Party protesters to convince.
Right now, Sens. Lieberman and Nelson are doing more to stop liberal excesses on health care reform than anything the GOP is doing or could do. Good enough.
teabag // Dec 15, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Lieberman and Nelson are fulfilling their roles in moderating legislation. That’s how it’s supposed to work, though they re supposed to represent their district not corporate America.
In a Republican congress there are no moderate voices. That’s how they passed the distaste that was Medicare reform. All that did was to spend a trillion dollars unfunded. Where were the fiscal conservatives then!! Then they voted in lock step time after time to pass tax cuts for the wealthy under reconciliation.
rbottoms // Dec 15, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Man am I terrified what will happen next spring, could be as many as three thousand people show up then. Har, and double Har.
balconesfault // Dec 15, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Right now, Sens. Lieberman and Nelson are doing more to stop liberal excesses on health care reform than anything the GOP is doing or could do.
Not really – unless you consider the GOP in the Senate to be akin to the Borg, one entity moving with 40 votes in lockstep, no actual individual will or soul found among them.
In actuality, many of those Republicans represent states that would favor a public option. In fact, a majority of Connecticut voters favor a public option, and a plurality of Nebraska voters do. Blanche Lincoln had to realize that 57% of Arkansans said they favor a public option, while in Evan Bayh’s Indiana it’s favored 52-42. And of course, that’s also Richard Lugar’s Indiana. In Snowe/Collins’ Maine, it’s 57-37 in favor of a public option.
By allowing a lot of these Republican Senators to have the luxury of never having to publicly pull the trigger to finally kill the public option, Harry Reid is being the best friend they’ve ever had.
mlindroo // Dec 16, 2009 at 5:50 am
Balconesfault wrote:
> In actuality, many of those Republicans represent states that would favor a public option.
Actually, I would take most health care opinion polls with a grain of salt since the vast majority of Americans have a poor understanding of the issues involved (not their fault either: this is a very complicated issue and even experts on health care policy are not sure about the true cost 10-20 years from now although they do agree that the status quo is too expensive in the long run).
Partisans either strongly favor or oppose health care reform for ideological reasons, but most voters seem to be confused and unsure about the benefits & costs.
MARCU$
sinz54 // Dec 16, 2009 at 8:50 am
balconesfault: By allowing a lot of these Republican Senators to have the luxury of never having to publicly pull the trigger to finally kill the public option, Harry Reid is being the best friend they’ve ever had.
You liberals sowed the seeds of that scenario,
when your hero Lamont drove Lieberman out of the Dem Party.
Harry Reid has little leverage over a Senator who is no longer in his party, and probably resents being driven out of his party.
tdawg11870 // Dec 16, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Whatever happened to the whole “our protests are on weekends because unlike you dirty hippies, we have jobs”?
The fact is that the core of the tea party movement is retired people. You saw it at the town halls as well. Dick Armey has his work cut out for him… any actuarial table will tell him that a significant chunk of his movement will be dead within the next decade.