Tea Party gains steam as dissatisfaction brews
Rob Scott, president and founder of the Dayton Tea Party, said the group has grown to 15,000 members and will see a 50 percent gain in donations this year.
While the Tea Party movement has steamrolled into the national spotlight, the Dayton area is building its own fervor for smaller government and fiscal responsibility.
The Dayton Tea Party has grown to roughly 15,000 members and is on track to raise about 50 percent more donations than it did last year, according to Rob Scott, president and founder of the organization.
Its last big push before the November elections will be an Oct. 14 rally at Courthouse Square in downtown Dayton designed to excite voters and get them to the polls.
Recently, candidates endorsed by the Tea Party have wreaked havoc in elections nationwide, including beating out established Republican candidates in primaries.
Christine O’Donnell was arguably the biggest Tea Party win this season, taking the Republican party’s U.S. Senate nomination in Delaware. She beat out Congressman Mike Castle, who was endorsed by the national Republican party leadership. In Alaska, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost to Republican primary challenger Joe Miller, a newcomer backed by the Tea Party. And Tea Party candidates have defeated party insiders in several other states.
The Tea Party — a reference to the Boston Tea Party of 1773 — is more a political movement than a party. It was spawned last year as a series of local and nationally coordinated protests over legislation such as the stimulus and health care reform.
Although it gains from the notoriety at the national level, and its message is along the same lines, Scott said the Dayton Tea Party remains an independent organization.
Membership is free, so the Dayton Tea Party operates on donations. It raised about $40,000 last year and Scott expects to raise as much as $60,000 this year. The money is used to pay for rallies, a Web site and basic administrative costs. The all-volunteer organization has been at about 200 volunteers for a while, but that number tends to mushroom near rally dates as excitement builds, Scott said.
After its launch last year, the Dayton Tea Party broke out into “liberty groups” to cover smaller geographic areas. About 20 of those groups span the region from Middletown to the south, Sidney to the north, Jamestown to the east and Preble County/Richmond, Ind., to the west.
The Dayton Tea Party covers one of the largest geographical areas of the country, said Scott, who runs the party along with a board and the leaders of each liberty group.
Groups are planning their own candidate forums leading up to the elections.
Individual group members also have been dissecting school budgets, looking for fat, and banding together to form political action committees to fight local levies, Scott said.
The Dayton Tea Party enjoys support from some prominent community members, such as Greg McAfee, owner of McAfee Heating and Air Conditioning.
McAfee said the local movement could be around for a long time because doing business in the region is a tough proposition; something that hinders the local economy.
“We just don’t need any more added taxes to business,” McAfee said. “A lot of the members I know involved in the Tea Party are in business … so I see it having a lot of staying power. There’s just a lot of dissatisfied people. I don’t look at it as a Republican or Democrat thing.”
Among the Dayton Tea Party’s biggest missions, and biggest challenges, is getting local business people swept up in the furor. The idea is that getting those successful in the private sector to step into political roles will lead to an environment where business can thrive.
“Let’s face it, people in government don’t know how business runs and what better way to change the dynamic than to get business people in those positions,” Scott said.
However, convincing them to run for office is a tough sell because they are busy running their companies, he said.
Scott, who holds a political science degree and is a recent graduate of the University of Dayton law school, always loved the political scene and grew up campaigning for conservative candidates. He also has worked as a legislative aid in the Ohio House of Representatives.
From the Dayton Business Journal…
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