Writing in Bridge magazine, Pat Shellenbarger provides an in-depth looks into Michigan's Tea Party, and it starts with the effort to unseat a person most observers believe is a true red conservative, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley.
"It’s the second Saturday of August, as a group of political newcomers gathers in a classroom of a Baptist school near Lansing. They are plotting a political coup. Among their many goals, they want to dump Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, left, and replace him with one of their own. They’d like to repeal or at least weaken Obamacare. They don’t have much political experience. They don’t have much money. They don’t have a formal political machine structure.
"Yet they’ve quickly gathered stunning momentum in the state capitol. They’ve helped block Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed gasoline tax hike for roads, stalled funding to implement Common Core education standards, and generally pushed the Republican Party to the right.
It’s the Tea Party Alliance, a little-known and loose confederation of about two dozen Tea Party groups from around the state that gather every month to share ideas, seek common ground and plot strategy.“ 'A lot of people thought our movement had gone away,” said Bob Murphy, head of the Lapeer County Tea Party Patriots and a member of the alliance. “We’re not standing out on the street with signs anymore. We’ve matured. It’s not all rage and hatred. We want people to listen to us.' ”
Shellenbarger interviews a number of people of all political persuasions, though many members of the GOP were afraid to be quoted, he notes.
“What’s fascinating here is that this is a bluish-purple state, or at least it’s not a blood-red state,” said Charley Ballard, left, a MSU economist generally seen as left-leaning. “And yet we have a legislature that on many issues is deep red, so red that the business community has only been able to get a modest part of what it wants, despite having a Republican governor and legislature. The business community wants good roads, good schools and Medicaid expansion, and the Tea Party has so far succeeded in preventing these things.”
Saul Anuzis, below, a former Republican state party chairman was ousted as a GOP national committeeman last year, by a wide margin, by Dave Agema, the Tea Party’s preferred candidate.
“You have a politically unruly coalition coming together and having influence,” he said. "They’re active, they’re loud, and they’re involved. The issue is whether it becomes an intolerant and strident organization that’s incapable of working in the system.”
Prominent Lansing public relations executive Roger Martin asks: "What has the Tea Party actually won?”
His firm faced down the Tea Party last year on Proposal 5; Martin and company fought back that proposed constitutional amendment that would have required legislative super majorities for any form of state tax increase.
“Proposal 5 was the Tea Party’s big chance and they got completely trounced,” Martin said. “They can’t win at the statewide level because they are out of step with the mainstream.”
