Tea Party activists unite at Iowa Capitol

Kris Thiessen used to get tired of people who talked politics.

Now she's one of them.

The Everly business owner was talking politics at the Capitol Tuesday along with a couple of dozen fellow Tea Party activists. High among their talking points were legislative proposals they say will weaken Iowa's election laws, gun rights and other proposals that expand government and limit freedom.

Unfortunately,” Thiessen said as Tea Party members and lawmakers milled about a table of breakfast food, “the people who we really want to talk to seem to have avoided us. We haven't had one Democrat come by.”

Only one Democrat, Sen. Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City, stopped by, she said, but didn't stay long enough that Thiessen could talk to him.

“I'm disappointed,” she said. “They don't want to hear what we have to say.”

That, in a nutshell, is what motivates Thiessen, 50, and others who brought their message to the Statehouse.

Thiessen, 50, said she voted and had attended a couple of precinct caucuses, but didn't consider herself political. But beginning in late 2008, when Congress started taking up bailout packages, stimulus plans and health-care overhaul, she started to get frustrated that elected officials weren't listening to the people who elected them.

“I felt we had to stand up and tell those people to stop,” she said. “If we sit down and do nothing, they'll keep doing what they've been doing – more government, less freedom.”

Frustration is about 90 percent of the motivation of Tea Party activists, according to Thiessen.

“We feel like we're not being represented,” she said, pointing to polls that show Americans don't like the congressional health-care bills, but its proponents continue to work on it.

“So no we're angry,” Thiessen said. “How many ways can we say ‘No?'”

The legislative breakfast was the first time the Tea Party groups have come together for one event, Thiessen said. Groups from Spencer, Sheldon, Storm Lake, Atlantic, Jones County, Des Moines, Urbandale and Cedar Falls were represented. They planned to talk about how to collaborate to get out their message.

She doubts candidates will run under the Tea Party label or that the groups will endorse candidates. Instead, she thinks the groups will educate voters on where candidates stand on issues.

Thiessen laughed at the suggestion that Tea Party activists are crazy, right-wing wing nuts.

“We're not the radicals, the birthers,” she said. We're working people, we're retired, we're of all ages. You can't tell us from anybody else."