Tea Party members rally at foot of Iowa Capitol

DES MOINES – An army of Tea Party patriots gathered at the foot of the Iowa Capitol Thursday to decry runaway spending, berate politicians with socialist leanings and call for restoring the limited government the nation's founders envisioned.

“Party like it's 1773” proclaimed one of the many placards waving in a crowd that two state police officers on site estimated between 1,500 and 2,000 rally participants.

Rally speaker Doug Burnett, a Des Moines area realtor, said the Tea Party is a grassroots movement of frustrated, angry and concerned citizens who are fed up with their government drifting away from conservative, libertarian principles of less taxation, smaller government with less control, and individual freedom.

“Silent no more,” Burnett declared to the cheering throng.

“We're powerful and we're earning our rightful place at the table,” he said. “If there is a tsunami of change coming to Washington in November, I believe it's the Tea Party that's the earthquake that's sending it there.”

Chuck Hurley, a former Republican state lawmaker who now leads the Iowa Family Policy Center, opened Thursday's rally at the state Capitol grounds with a prayer for a new birth of freedom and good government.

“Here we are in a dark moment in our nation's history where much of our founder's vision has been trashed,” Hurley said. “We confess our own sins of apathy. But no more, father, might we never cower again to stand up for your truth and freedom. Father we need you. We implore your wisdom to guide us as we move forward and as we take back our country from those who would literally want to destroy it.”

Charlie Gruschow, chairman of the Des Moines Tea Party, said it's time voters removed incumbent politicians that are backing radical, socialist, progressive, liberal policies. He said government is out of control at both the federal and state levels.

That message resonated with Curt Hora, a rally participant from Ankeny who sported the message -- “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys” – on the back of his shirt.

“The federal government has way too much power and that needs to be reduced,” he said. “The people that we send to Washington are jerks, all of them.”

Hora's wife, Marcia, said change likely will have to come one politician at a time.

“We need a strong constitutional person who is willing to say no,” she said. “There are too many of them that get there and they just forget what their oath is. We have got to hold them accountable. All of us people we've all taken this too long. It's as much about us as it is about them. We need to take the power back and hold them accountable. We've got to be vigilant about that. It's our money.”

Bob Vander Plaats, a 2010 Republican candidate for governor, worked the crowd at a rally where organizers refused to allow political candidates to speak. He said he believed the Tea Party is a growing political force that he hoped would benefit him in the GOP primary election on June 8 because he is coming from the private sector while his two opponents have been part of government.

“If they're not making believers out of people, than people just aren't looking at the data,” said Vander Plaats, pointing to Republican Scott Brown's surprise victory in the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts to fill the seat vacated by the death of Democrat Ted Kennedy. “I'd say they've got a lot of power in this environment.”

Gov. Chet Culver, a first-term Democrat seeking re-election this fall, said his record mirrors some of the principles Tea Party members espouse.

“I think they'll like the fact that we've not raised taxes on hard-working Iowans, that the Culver-Judge administration has not raised the gas tax, has not raised the sales tax, we've got the size of government by 16 percent, we're leaner than we were the day I walked into the job,” Culver told reporters at a Thursday bill-signing event. “I've been a fiscal conservative when it comes to making sure that we keep this budget balanced.”

Here is a sampling of some of the signs waved by Tea Party rally participants:

“Tell Barack I'm Baroke”

“Socialism = slavery”

“Just plan fed up”

“Remember in November”

“Failures love socialism”

“Recession – when your neighbor loses his job; Depression – when you lose your job; Recovery – when Obama loses his job”

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