Sal Russo, left, a political strategist who has raised more than $2 million for the Tea Party Express, looks over a TV commercial with Bobby Cullen.
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No matter the cause, politics is a mix of believers, opportunists and entrepreneurs. The tea party is no different.
Claire Magid, a believer, is a retiree who organized a recent tea party gathering that attracted 200 people to the Lincoln Public Library. To cover costs, she placed an empty HyTop coffee can with a slit in its plastic lid on a folding table in the auditorium.
“Donations would be appreciated,” read the note taped to the side of the can. By the end of the night, she had raised $60, well short of the $230.53 cost of renting the room and paying for insurance.
Magid supports “anyone who is a constitutionalist. That’s what we’re all about – the Constitution.” Of course, the best minds of our day differ in constitutional interpretations.
She points to Rep. Ron Paul as a true constitutionalist and supported his 2008 presidential bid. The Texas Republican-libertarian is an isolationist in foreign affairs who seeks to abolish the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard.
Exactly what the partiers stand for depends on your view. Here are the basics: They oppose big government and taxes, and fret about the economy. The movement also attracts birthers and people who advocate sealing America’s borders.
California tea partiers want to place an initiative on the November ballot to restrict the ability of unions to spend on political campaigns – an idea that voters have rejected twice, most recently in 2005.
Magid hopes for a part-time Legislature, is “sick of taxes” is proud that there is a “strong Christian” element among her tea party friends and hopes to maintain tea party independence.
“There will be people out there trying to claim the tea party movement as their own,” Magid said. “We’re not a party, and we don’t endorse. We find candidates we like, and we work for them.”
Chuck DeVore, an Orange County assemblyman, sees the opportunity and hopes to be one of those candidates. A darling of Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, DeVore is seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate and took his campaign to the Lincoln gathering.
At one point, he asked people in the audience to raise their hands if they were under 30. Two did. He spoke reverentially about the Constitution, warned about the rise of China, and whaled away at the Wall Street bailout, trade deficits and overspending by President George W. Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“You care very deeply about America. Some of you are scared. Some of you are mad as hell,” DeVore told the crowd. “A sleeping giant has been awakened.”
In downtown Sacramento 30 miles from Lincoln, long-time Republican political consultant Sal Russo pings the “giant” with regular e-mails soliciting money and urging activism.
Russo, who has worked for Govs. Ronald Reagan and George Deukmejian, does not pretend to control tea partiers. He hopes to get tea party people to the polls to nominate Republicans who can win general elections. But he sees entrepreneurial possibilities. There’s also money to be made.
When he was advocating Barack Obama’s defeat in 2008, Russo raised $1.3 million. Not a bad haul. But recession or not, business got better when he rebranded his political action committee as Our Country Deserves Better-Tea Party Express. In 2009, Russo raised $2.06 million.
Russo’s office walls are lined with photos of his Republican heroes, Nixon, Reagan and Deukmejian. He doesn’t represent candidates these days. Instead, he has carved a niche by chartering buses and embarking on cross-country tours, organizing rallies along the way.
A few years ago, he organized tours in support of our troops and the Iraq war. Now he runs Tea Party Express tours.
To gin up excitement for a Tea Party Express rally last year, he brought Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher to speak at the rallies and paid him $2,000. Better known as “Joe the Plumber,” Wurzelbacher gained fame and a book deal by sharply questioning Obama about taxes during the 2008 campaign.
Correspondents for Fox News, CNN and the New York Times reported on his tours last year. He is preparing for another tour in March, starting in Searchlight, Nev., hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whom he hopes to help unseat. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is scheduled to speak at the Searchlight rally.
“Last year, people were cursing at their television sets,” Russo said. “Now, our job is to get people off their couches and pointed toward taking our country back.”
Whether any of it will work is not clear. The latest Field Poll found that 28.5 percent of Californians identify “a lot” or “some” with the movement, and 28.2 percent identify with it “not at all.”
Among “strong conservatives,” 63 percent identify with the movement. However, Republicans make up an ever slimmer slice of California’s electorate, 30.8 percent compared with 44.6 percent who are Democrats and 20 percent who decline to state a party preference, latest registration figures show. Not a single one of California’s 58 counties had even 50 percent Republican registration.
Its reputation as a Democratic bastion notwithstanding, California does have a conservative streak. It has always been there. Depending on the electorate’s mood, conservatives can latch onto an issue that draws in moderates and win.
They propelled Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann to their legendary status, approving the property tax slashing Proposition 13 in 1978. They dumped three justices from the California Supreme Court in 1986, approved the anti-illegal immigrant Proposition 187 in 1994, and recalled Gray Davis in 2003 and replaced him with a movie star.
“More than a movement, there is a mood,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California. “The mood is about frustration and dissatisfaction with government in California, a sense that government is not working. It cuts across party lines.”
Fragmented though the movement is, consultants nationally hope to harness the energy. Dick Armey, the former Republican congressman who co-authored the “Contract for America” in 1994, is promoting himself as one who can orchestrate the movement.
Tom Tancredo also seeks a place of prominence. A former Colorado congressman, Tancredo is stridently anti-illegal immigration. Speaking at last weekend’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, he suggested that the United States institute a “civics literacy test” for voters. That brought a rebuke from Meghan McCain, the daughter of Republican Sen. John McCain, who called it racist and a reason why young people turn away from the GOP.
Joe Farah, the radical-right former editor of the Sacramento Union, spoke in Nashville, too. Farah is a leading voice in the “birther” movement that questions whether Barack Obama was born in the United States. Farah supported Tancredo for president in 2008. Tancredo dropped out before the first primary vote was cast.
“If Republicans think this movement is their road to success, they are sadly mistaken. This is anti-incumbency,” Farah told me.
Farah believes McCain could be in trouble in Arizona, along with moderate Republican Gov. Charlie Christ of Florida, who is seeking a U.S. Senate seat. That could be good news for the Democrats.
In California, Russo, DeVore and Magid are three faces of the tea party movement. How many will be around beyond the 2010 election remains to be seen. Believers tend to stay active for an election cycle or two.
Conservatives sometimes win Republican primaries in California. But Sen. Barbara Boxer surely would be pleased with a win for DeVore in June. Conservative candidates haven’t won statewide offices in years.
DeVore and Magid may not remain. Russo’s roots date back to Reagan’s tenure. Of the three, my guess is that Russo will be here in 2012 and beyond.
It is not clear what the tea party movement will become, or if it will become anything other than some aging and angry voters. It stands a chance if tea partiers focus on bailouts, lower taxes and smaller government. It will splinter if talk turns to social issues like abortion rights or isolationist foreign policy. It will fracture if talk shifts to Obama’s birthplace and litmus tests for voters.