A group of western Connecticut activists has registered the name “CT Tea Party” with the Secretary of the State’s office. Registering is the first step toward becoming a political party in the state.
The group’s goal: “To ensure that the Democratic and Republican caucuses are prepared to put forth candidates that are ready to go to to work for the people, and not continue the status quo that’s caused the problems both locally and at the state and federal levels,” said Dan Gaita of Bethel, the party’s chairman.
Tanya Bachand, leader of the Connecticut Tea Party Patriots, said she had no idea that Gaita’s group was planning to register the name as a political party and learned of it only after the fact. Initially, Bachand was concerned: In Florida and elsewhere around the nation, activists have clashed over the right to use the tea party name.
Moreover, tea party activists portray themselves as a grassroots conservative movement, one where mistrust of political parties runs deep.
But after talking with Gaita, Bachand said she was reassured that his conservative credentials are in order. “We welcome them into the fold,” she said.
Still, Bachand’s not quite ready to embrace the strategy of turning the tea party movement into an official political party. “We told them we didn’t think this was a good idea but obviously we can’t stop them.”
Gaita said the CT Tea Party hopes to ultimately endorse candidates for the legislature as well as the state’s constitutional offices and U.S. Senate.
“A good candidate for the CT Tea Party isn’t someobody who has money, isn’t somebody who has political power and isn’t somebody that will be corrupted by the major party tradewinds,” Gaita said. “We’re looking for outsiders, for people who are living in the trenches, who are going through everyday struggles.”
A former U.S. Marine who served in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti, Gaita runs a health and fitness studio and serves on Bethel’s library building committee. He and his wife have two young daughters.
“We are literally one of the families in the trenches that the people in Hartford are disconnected from,” he said. “They’ve got their health care, they’ve got their union protection. They’ve squandered the public trust and they need to be fired. We need new leaders need to fix the mess were in and that’s the mission of the CT Tea Party.”
Gaita and his fellow activists now need to get a certain number of signatures in their quest to gain ballot access. For example, if they want to put a candidate for governor on the ballot, they would need roughly 10,000 signatures, said Av Harris, spokesman for the Secretary of the State’s office.