February 07, 2010 08:55 AM UTC

Tea Party Candidate Forum in Teller County Saturday.

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• by: Barron X

(An excellent, first hand account.   – promoted by Middle of the Road)

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As a member of the biggest Third Party in the country, the American Constitution Party, I believe in a lot of the same conservative principles that the Tea Party – 9/12 movement stands for.  Or so I thought.  

I went to check out the group, and to hear the folks running for the Senate for the two major parties.  5 people competing for the GOP nomination showed up.  There was a cardboard cutout of Senator Bennet duct-taped to a chair on the dais, and the moderator announced that Andrew Romanoff had been invited, but declined.  

I arrived as they were reciting the Pledge.  

About 350-400 attendees.

Average age over 60.  

Forum was well-organized.

First speaker was Congressman Doug Lamborn; he took 10 minutes to say he was doing all he could to stop the Obamination of unbounded spending, outlandish taxation and strangling regulation.  

It sounded like he enjoyed being one of the 500 most powerful people on the planet, but after 3+ years in office, he couldn’t point out even one example of how he had used that immense power to achieve something good.    

It sounded like he wanted to keep occupying that seat of power, but still wasn’t going to do anything but rail and rant ineffectively against those evil Democrats.  Talk about a total waste of a Congressional seat.  

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But the crowd of self-styled revolutionaries seemed OK with that.  As long as the seat was held by a Republican, that was good enough.  Don’t ask him to roll up his sleeves and actually do anything with all that power.    

As he was blathering about how he was doing everything he could to sabotage and stonewall the Administration, some a**hole in the crowd sitting between the chair to my left and the chair to my right yelled out that he hadn’t done anything.  After 4 years (it’s only been just over 3,) he had nothing to show for it.  The Congressman was unable to respond with even one accomplishment.  

What’s an unruly person like that doing in a Tea Party meeting ?  

Doesn’t the Tea Party enjoy a reputation for civility ?  I need to check with Arlen Specter on that.  

But challenging an incumbent career GOP politician who has done absolutely nothing* to help the country address our problems ?  Outrageous.  The nerve.  

This loudmouth was “shushed” by most of the T-Party ‘revolutionaries’ surrounding him.  

The woman to his left asked, “The Dems control the House.  What do you expect him to do ?”  Soft bigotry, low expectations.  

Evidently the Tea Party gives Lamborn a pass because he’s a Republican.

So, do they call themselves the “Tea Party” because they want to maintain the status quo ?  I couldn’t figure that part out.

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Then the candidates vying for the GOP nomination to run against Michael Bennet were asked questions.  Questions on illegal immigration, welfare for banks that are too big to fail, keep the Government out of government-funded health care, etc.

Jane Norton was the smoothest, most polished speaker.  I don’t think she actually said anything memorable.  At least I don’t remember.  I’ll have to check out the writeup over at Colorado Statesman; they had a reporter there.  

Steve Barton was the worst speaker.  He looked and sounded uncomfortable.  I think that demeanor kept his message from getting through.  He needs more practice speaking at such functions.  

Cleve has an impressive resume, but his “aw, shucks” down-to-earth shtick didn’t play well.  

Tom Wiens got the best crowd reactions.  I thought he said in one of his answers that he represented Woody Park in the Colorado legislature, and the crowd responded as if he did, but I think he’s from Castle Rock.  I asked his campaign manager if Tom ever lived up Ute Pass, and he couldn’t answer my question.  

Tom has a good speaking style, moderating tempo and volume, building to a solid applause line in every ‘extemporaneous, off-the-cuff’ answer.  In other words, he did some good prep, anticipating the questions and practicing answers with a coach.  

If there was a winner, and I don’t think there was, it would have been Tom.  

Ken Buck came across as the most “senatorial.”  Very good speaker; his answers were either well-rehearsed, or he is about as smart on his feet as Obama (that’s pretty smart, in my book.)

Afterwards, I asked him why nobody was going after Norton.  He reminded me about a veiled reference to Referendum C that he made in one of his answers.  Man, at this stage, that subtlety is going to bury him.  

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All in all, I didn’t get the impression that there was anything authentic to the notion of an independent Tea Party.  For my money, this could just as well have been an officially sanctioned event of the local GOP, in support of the goals of the corporate-owned, corporate-controlled national GOP.  

The people there struck me as disgruntled Republicans, unhappy about where their party has wandered lately, but unwilling to put principle ahead of party and unable to vote for anyone but the Republican candidate, regardless of whether she or he is a conservative.

They are smart, don’t get me wrong.  They can see that corporations own Lamborn, and will own whoever beats Romanoff for the Senate seat.  They hate that corporate ownership has turned the GOP away from conservative principles.  They hope to get conservatives elected in the Primary, and are organizing to do that locally.  But when the General Election rolls around, every one of them is pulling the lever for the Republican candidate, even if its somebody’s yellow dog.    

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* — it’s not fair to say that Congressman Lamborn hasn’t done anything to help American citizens.  He has worked hard to protect a very select group of “citizens” against the ravages of over-regulation and cash shortfalls in these harrowing times.  

Those “citizens” are grateful.  They include Bank of America, AIG, Wall Street brokers, Wall Street bankers, credit card companies and the Federal Reserve.  Thankfully, the Supreme Court is protecting the rights of these “citizens” to contribute to Congressman Lamborn’s reelection as a way to show their appreciation.  

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