>>>Exactly how many Tea party events have you attended? Andy and I are members of the Summit County Tea Party and there are always Black people at our monthly Saturday morning meetings. This is an observation of fact. So what is your observation of fact based on? Fiction?
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>>Come on, Marcia. Just because there are a few black people in your local Tea Party event, doesn't negate the reality that the Tea Party is mostly white people. Let's just try to be honest here and not argue semantics.
>>
>>There are white people in the NCAAP, but that doesn't make the statement that the NCAAP is comprised of black people untrue.
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>>I see a Tea Party rally every week on the downtown square. Guess how many black people I've seen? Zero. Guess how many white people? 100%
>
>And the tea party is racist because of what - their platform? No coloreds through the front door, bring back slavery, etc right?
>
>It wouldn't be anything like some people don't like having a socialist government, or they don't like having a government continue to expand lifetime hand-outs (oops - I mean entitlements), or they don't like having the national debt increase more than the current state of insolvency. It wouldn't be just economic preferences that move people to certain political parties, right?
>
>What a load.

I live in Montana, so I can only speak to the MT Tea Party. Since I live in the state capitol and our legislative session just ended, we heard from them alot.

>It wouldn't be anything like some people don't like having a socialist government
Yup, we heard this repeated alot. They also don't want the Federal government telling them what they have to do.
Then, their elected state representatives turn right around and tried to pass legislation dictating what Montana counties need to do.


> they don't like having a government continue to expand lifetime hand-outs (oops - I mean entitlements),
Heard this one alot too. (As long as no one cuts their crop support payments. We DO have an ag based state economy. Oh, and don't mess with Medicare or Social Security either. Other than that they are opposed to handouts)

>they don't like having the national debt increase more than the current state of insolvency.
True, they don't. But again, don't mess with ag support, Medicare or SS.

Mainly, they seemed to think we are short of guns in MT (a state where nearly everyone hunts). There was alot of proposed legislation about open carry, concealed carry (any one any where), county militias (in case we need to repel Albertans (watch out Grady)).

To top it off, after all the anti-tax rhetoric, they snuck in an 11th hour 2.5% business tax increase for workers compensation (which the Democratic governor vetoed).

I realize that I'm conflating the Montana Republican party and the Montana Tea Party(s). But after the 2010 election, the Tea Party(s) took a lot of credit for the result of that election.

AFAICS, the Tea Party talks a good talk, but when in a position to govern, they are no different than any other politicians.