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Tea party plans big rally in Sacramento
SACRAMENTO — Sacramento will play host to one of three major tea party rallies around the country this weekend, as the conservative movement's leaders look to re-energize activists in the final weeks before the November election.
Organizers expect between 25,000 and 50,000 people to attend Sunday's rally, "United to the Finish," in McClellan Park, about 12 miles northeast of the capital. The stated objective is to protest what the movement characterizes as big government and to remind Americans of the bond they felt the day after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The Yuba Sutter Tea Party Patriot group said it intends to attend the event.
"Recently, America has strayed from our basic principles including fiscal responsibility, limited constitutional government and free markets, creating a high level of frustration in the American people," said Ginny Rapini of Colfax, the national adviser and coordinator of NorCal Tea Party Patriots, the group hosting the Sacramento event. "These conditions have caused Americans to drift away from that feeling of unity we all felt on Sept. 12, 2001."
Similar Tea Party Patriots rallies are scheduled for St. Louis and Washington, D.C. The organization claims to be the nation's largest tea party group, with 2,700 chapters across the country, including at least 175 in California.
Together, the rallies represent a crucial opportunity to stoke anti-establishment sentiment in advance of the general election, which will serve as the biggest indicator to date of the tea party's ability to shape the national political landscape.
Some experts doubt the largely Republican movement will be able to make real waves at the polls in a reliably left-leaning state like California.
Political scientist Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, described California as fertile ground for a movement with an anti-tax focus. However, tea party-friendly candidates will likely meet resistance from voters if they stray from a purely economic agenda, he said.
