05/21/10 Tea time: Local patriots gear up for election season - Greenwich Post

The Tea Party Patriots have been gathering steam on the national political stage this past month, throwing a wrench into the primary system by rejecting longstanding Republican politicians in favor of hard-line conservatives.

This week alone, the movement has been credited with helping Rand Paul, son of libertarian-hero Ron Paul and an early Tea Party favorite, charge to victory in Kentucky, receiving the Republican nomination for Senate handily beating GOP establishment favorite Trey Grayson. The Tea Party was also credited with rejecting Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican with an 84% lifetime track record of voting conservative, who was deemed “not conservative enough” for renomination.

The movement has vast implications on the national stage, but what does it mean locally, in Connecticut and in Greenwich specifically?



The Post sat down last week for some tea time —via conference call — with leaders of the Greenwich/Stamford Tea Party Patriots to find out.

Monique Thomas of Greenwich and Cathy Grippi of Wilton founded the group in January of this year, basing it on a “grass-roots alliance” that now links 27 Tea Party groups from around the state of Connecticut. Ms. Thomas and Ms. Grippi said they were both “fed up” with what they said is the federal and state governments’ disregard for the Constitution.

They met at a rally in Washington, D.C., last November after finding inspiration from Fox News host Glenn Beck and conservative Minnesota Congressman Michelle Bachmann, who were calling on their followers to voice their opposition to legislation including the bank bailouts and the universal health care bill.

The women linked up and decided to form a local group based on the Tea Party’s core values of “fiscal responsibility, small government and free markets.”

Although the movement claims to attract people from all political persuasions, the group leans heavily Republican. In an e-mail from Ms. Thomas that included a “Declaration of Tea Party Independence” from the Hartford Tea Party Patriots, the movement “declares itself independent” of both the Democratic Party with its “power drunk junta in Washington, D.C., which is currently seeking to impose a Socialist agenda on our Republic,” and the GOP, “which has in the past manipulated its Conservative Base to win election after election and which then betrays everything that base fought for and believed.”

In the same breath, the Tea Party declaration said the party does not support RINO (Republican in name only) politicians, saying “when Republicans are in accord with their conservative base as well as the independent voters who align with it, it wins. When they are not in accord with the conservative base and the independent voters who align with it, it loses.”

Ms. Thomas explained that the Tea Party doesn’t put forth its own candidates, instead supporting whomever is most closely aligned with the movement’s core values.

In Connecticut, these candidates include Rob Merkle, a Republican running for the 4th District congressional seat (see letter to editor on page 4), and Peter Schiff, a Republican running for Senate who served as an economic adviser for Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign. Both are businessmen, which Ms. Grippi and Ms. Thomas said makes them fit to get “excessive spending” in Washington and in the state under control.

“I recognize that in order for me to be part of any solution I need to align myself with one of the parties, because that’s how the system works,” said Ms. Grippi. “So it was for both of us the Republican Party because its platforms and values seem to resonate with both of us.”

Of utmost importance to the local Tea Party leaders is taking personal responsibility for oneself, Ms. Thomas said.

On the new health care legislation, Ms. Thomas said the Tea Party rejects it because it demands that people purchase a service.

“Where in the Constitution does it give the federal or state government the authority to tell everyone they need to do that?” she said. “If I drive a car, I take on the responsibility of owning and driving it, so I must purchase auto insurance. But it brings it to a whole new level that just because we are alive, we must purchase health care insurance.”

On unemployment wages and other government-provided support services, Ms. Grippi said the programs are becoming “unsustainable,” with people being paid now with “uncollected taxes.”

Locally, the group is focusing on getting out support for Schiff and Merkle, and is seeking candidates to run against “five uncontested incumbent Democrats” in state House and state Senate seats.

“The legislation that comes down from [Hartford] is just as bad, if not worse, than DC right now,” said Ms. Thomas.

The Greenwich/Stamford Tea Party Patriots hold a weekly rally every Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. in front of the Greenwich YMCA on East Putnam Avenue.

Their next major event is a Tri-State Liberty Summit bringing together Tea Party representatives from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on Sunday, May 23, from 2 to 6 at the Italian Center of Stamford.

For more information about the group visit gstpp.org.