Tea Party Express schedules rallies in Iowa

DES MOINES -- Tea Party Express organizers say their national bus tour will be making stops in Iowa next week.

Saul Russo, chief strategist for the nation's largest Tea Party political action committee, said his Sacramento-based group's "Restoring the American Dream" bus tour is slated to make stops in Des Moines and Sioux City on Monday. The express bus participants will rally activists at the state Capitol at 11:30 a.m. in Des Moines and then hold a 5:30 p.m. event at Riverside Park in Sioux City.

“Iowa is a key battleground state for the White House along with the U.S. House of Representatives,” Russo said in a statement. “If we are going to change the failed big-government policies coming out of Washington, we need a motivated and engaged conservative electorate to defeat Obama and reinforce the conservative majority in the House. Iowa is key in achieving these goals in 2012.”

Russo said his organization already has endorsed five candidates for the U.S. Senate and one for the U.S. House and he said he expects more endorsements would be announced on this tour.

“Our goal will be rallying activists in support of some of the upcoming primary election battles or for the upcoming general election,” he added. “Each stop aims at engaging voters with candidates and policies that promote pro-growth, free-market solutions to ensure the American dream can be achieved by anyone. The only way to change this current economic path that is leaving us with a weak recovery, at best, is to change the players and policies that got us here. We started in 2010 and that drive will continue through November of 2012.”

Russo said Tea Party Express has hosted more than 300 rallies across the country.