Steele hits a brick wall
Apparently Michael Steele wanted to jump on the Tea Party bandwagon a little too late. This comes from the DontGo Movement:
A few days ago Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele asked to speak at the Chicago Tax Day Tea Party. He was thanked for finally reaching out to the movement but denied to speak.
National Communications Director Juliana Johnson states, "Steele hasn't shown any interest in this movement until now, until the cameras are rolling. We denied his invitation. In addition, this is a nonpartisan event, not an RNC event."
Eric Odom, Director of the DontGo Movement, said in his letter to Steele's people, "...We're still excited to know that Chairman Steele will be in Chicago and we hope, after knowing that he'll be in the city, that he'll stop by and mingle with the Americans who will be rallying on April 15th. This will also present a fantastic time for Chairman Steele to LISTEN to what we have to say and perhaps gather some thoughts on what the RNC needs to be doing moving forward."
As I made clear before, we as a local party have no official role in the Tax Day Tea Party proceedings in Salisbury but many of us will be there as private citizens and fed-up taxpayers. That's something which transcends party lines in our neck of the woods.
But some of the DontGo people were even less kind about the GOP getting involved.
Is the Tea Party tied to the GOP? Of course not.
In fact, that couldn't be further from the truth. The reality is, the RNC has been about as effective as a lead balloon in actually engaging the free-market minded grassroots with regards to political action. The RNC, as well as all but two Republican members of Congress, have been eerily silent over the past few weeks.
RNC Chairman Steele's office did reach out to me on Tuesday (although rumor has it that he is now denying such a conversation took place) morning and the person I spoke with asked if we would be interested in having him speak at the Chicago Tea Party. This request was, of course, at the last minute and only after national media eyes became involved.
But that was the first time the RNC had really injected itself at the national level into any part of the Tea Party Movement. (Emphasis in original.)
And I can see why the Tea Party organizers seem wary of a political party and apparatus getting involved. It's politicians of both stripes who have placed our nation in the situation we find ourselves in, and while Republican principles run toward fiscal conservatism their voting patterns of late haven't always lent themselves to backing up their words with deeds.
Instead, we have a huge proportion of Americans who have washed their hands entirely of politics, much to their detriment. The cynicism and mistrust many look to those fat-cat politicians with is well-earned and has been pretty much since our Republic was formed. Even in the day of our Founding Fathers there were unscrupulous men who sought only their own enrichment in the public arena.
In the end, one day of protest isn't going to make a huge difference. We'll get together, hear a few speeches, and have an opportunity to vent our frustration. However, the next day we're all going to wake up and little will have changed in the free-spending ways of Congress, the legislative bodies in the several states, and local jurisdictions everywhere.
To make a lasting difference will take more than a one day rally, and the involvement is going to take its toll along the way. Our original revolution was years in the making as was the war between the states. In this particular era thus far we've managed to make our changes by ballot and not by bullet. Sometimes I think the best we can hope for is that these widening differences between the government and governed don't come to bloodshed.