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On tax day, today groups of supporters of the Tea Party movement gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest and bring attention to their issues, naming among them the tax code and government spending and gaining Congressional seats in the November elections.
Several different organizations that use the Tea Party name came to D.C. under the symbolic April 15 umbrella. One of the groups receiving coverage is the "Tea Party Express," which held a series of events starting with a rally in Searchlight, Nevada, the hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Yesterday, the group made its penultimate stop in Boston, at a gathering featuring a speech by Sarah Palin and questions about the non-appearance of Republican Scott Brown, who was recently elected to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Democrat Ted Kennedy.
D.C. was not the only protest location: The Chicago Sun-Times reports that an estimated 2,000 rallies were held across the country.
The New York Times and CBS News conducted a poll of self-identified Tea Party supporters and found that they tend to be "Republican, white, male, married and older than 45," as well as wealthier and more educated than the general population.
Katie Zernike and Megan Thee-Brenan write in the New York Times:
Of the 18 percent of Americans who identified themselves as supporters, 20 percent, or 4 percent of the general public, said they had given money or attended a Tea Party event, or both. These activists were more likely than supporters generally to describe themselves as very conservative and had more negative views about the economy and Mr. Obama. They were more angry with Washington and intense in their desires for a smaller federal government and deficit.
Reports and images are coming in from today's D.C. protest:
Michael E. Ruane and Amy Gardner, for the Washington Post:
Several thousand tax protesters and Obama opponents gathered Thursday morning in sun-splashed weather to cheer speakers and vent their anger at government policies.
Many carried the yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flag with a coiled rattlesnake that has become an emblem of anti-government protest.
Nick Wing & Jeremy Binckes, in Tea Parties Protest Tax Day 2010 (Pictures, Video) at The Huffington Post:
Dick and Sue Sheldon, a retired couple from Clarksville, Ga. traveled to Washington not to protest, they told HuffPost, but to lobby their congressman and senators in support of a consumption tax, dubbed the "fair tax." They joined about two dozen others from a group called Americans for Fair Taxation on their way to Freedom Plaza, between Capitol Hill and the White House, where they'll join Tea Party groups and folks like Dick Armey and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).
Ana Marie Cox is sharing photos, video and commentary from her Twitter stream.
Kathy Kiely, in Tea Party returns to Washington at USA Today:
They profess to despise Washington and the "liberal" media, but Tea Partiers have arrived in the lion's den: More than 100 activists, early arrivals for a day of demonstrations here, are sitting in the ballroom of the National Press Club right now listening to leaders of the movement urge them to get involved in this year's congressional campaigns.
Shannon Travis, in "View from the 'sidekick' seat on a Tea Party bus" at CNN:
Agitators have thrown eggs at the buses. Ray March, one of the drivers, told me that a semi-truck driver tried to run his bus off the road. Now there was a late-night ranting as the conservative activists rolled into the nation's reliably liberal capital.
Additional Views:
Stephanie Condon at CBS News: What's Obama Doing to Your Taxes?
Today, thousands of Tea Partiers will descend on Washington to declare they've been "Taxed Enough Already." Yesterday's poll found that 64 percent of Tea Party supporters think the administration has raised taxes -- a finding that might leave Democrats banging their heads against their desks.
Joan Walsh at Salon: The tea partiers' racial paranoia
Salon's Numerologist, David Jarman, nails it today: He combines the widely covered CBS/New York Times poll on the Tea Partiers – no surprise, they're white, and they think President Obama is doing too much for black people; some surprise, they're wealthier than the average voter – with a less-covered University of Washington poll that finds they also doubt the hard work, intelligence
