Organizers Take Steps to Keep Tea Party Rally Clean
Thousands of people are expected to travel to Washington, D.C., next week to attend the April 15 rally against the policies of the Obama administration, and organizers are implementing new steps to ensure the crowd remains civil and its message is not diluted by personal attacks.
The Tax Day Tea Party event, co-sponsored by several groups including the Fair Tax Campaign, Tea Party Express, Americans for Tax Reform and FreedomWorks, will take place at the base of the Washington Monument overlooking the White House.
“I think we are going to have thousands,” FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe said on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. “I think it’s going to be a big group. We are going to have a big space.”
Kibbe said he expects a lengthy list of leaders of the populist tea party movement to address the crowd.
Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (Ga.) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) have confirmed they will address the rally.
Kibbe said organizers would police the crowd in order to keep out “infiltrators from the left,” who he said were responsible for some of the racist remarks attributed to tea party activists. Offenders will be asked to leave the rally.
Attendees carrying inappropriate signs, such as those made by Lyndon LaRouche supporters which depict President Barack Obama as Adolf Hitler, would also be ejected in order to keep them from diluting the movement’s message of small government and lower taxes, Kibbe said.
“We don’t want them there, and they don’t represent our values,” he said.
The D.C. rally will coincide with several other tea party events around the country, a fact that organizers said shows that the movement has widespread support.
Kibbe said the passage of Obama’s health care bill only further galvanized activists involved in the movement.
“We all have a common enemy now,” he said.