On April 15th, I attended the Tea Party in Augusta. Maine. Before I left I saw and editorial in the Portland Press herald titled "The mad Republicans Tea Party?" The editorial was about the Tea Party scheduled to occur later in the day in Portland, Me. Although I did not attend the Tea Party in Portland, I was aware of it from emails I received from a group in Bath, Maine, which is reading and discussing “The 5000 Year Leap” a book about the history of the formation of The United States of America. I was aware that the Tea Party movement as non-partisan movement from my involvement with the Bath Group and my email discussions with The Maine Tea Party, and online forum at Paint Maine Red, a website started by “Pete The Carpenter”, who is also a primary organizer of the Augusta Tea Party.

On all occasions, the emphasis has been to get away from two- party thinking. We are encouraged to look at candidates as individuals rather than representatives of a political party. In fact we are encouraged to register to vote as independents.

The editorial on the front page of the “LOCAL & STATE’ section of The Portland Press Herald read: ” At last an entertaining use fro the Maine State Pier. It’s the perfect place for southern Maine’s conservative Republican fringe to throw itself a full- blown temper tantrum…it’s one of many such events to be held around the country on income tax day to demonstrate that the hard core GOP is mad as hell at President Obama, liberals and the media elite, and is, not, I repeat, Not, going to take it anymore.
Stop yawning, they really mean it this time”

The article went on to frame the Portland Tea Party as a Republican- organized event. Having received the emails about the event, but choosing instead to attend the event in Augusta, I did not identify it as a Republican party event, as it was being portrayed in the Bill Nemitz editorial. I knew that the Republican Project was participating, but, that does not make the event, a “Republican” event. The Tea Party was initiated as a grass roots movement of the people. Whatever party allegiances they currently or formerly adhered to, they were coming together to take back their government. Maine is, after all, the state in which our Republican senators tipped the balance of powers, which opened the gate for the passage of the Stimulus Bill and this, has gone a long way to the dissolution of party line politics in Maine.

I cannot speak for what took place in Portland but the Augusta Tea Party emphasized over and over again that this is not Republican or Democratic Issue. To my point of view the policies of the current administration are so extreme and trying to forcibly push the United States down the road to socialism, that it has finally ignited a full burning flame of constitutionalism that has been on a slow burn for decades.

While nationally televised Tea Parties across the nation drew crowds that peaked at 370 thousand (and still counting), the group at Augusta was around four or five hundred people. Smallness has it’s own advantages and in this case it is that any one could take the mike and speak to the crowd. It was the voice of the people telling their own stories. All ages were represented. Pete the Carpenter is your archetypical Maine carpenter, speaking with a down east accent and the sincerity and urgency that brings to life the first American Tea Party that ignited the American Revolution that brought about the creation of The United States Constitution- but the emphasis in the current Tea Party movement is on a civil revolution. The crowd was urged to participate in politics from the local to the national level, including the call to run for office. This is a people’s movement. The only party affiliation is the American Tea Party. This is the voice of all the people who are fed up with the policies coming out of Washington and the gradual erosion of the United States Constitution. It is a call to bring America back to its constitutional roots.