Collegio Online

Issue date: 7/22/10 Section: Front Page

In this June 30 photo, tea party members Marilyn Alder of Hebron, Conn., left, and Anne Grabowy, of Griswold, Conn., right, rally outside of the office of U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn, in Norwich, Conn. Despite a frenzy of Tea Party activity on the national scene, Pittsburg Tea Party members have been quiet lately.

"Write about the benefits of the two-party system."
It's a command countless political science students have been given through the years, but it may soon (if not already) be taken as an insult. Recently a third party has entered the country's political arena, and its members demand to be taken seriously.
The Tea Party is a grassroots movement with aims to reform the government and
put governance back in the hands of U.S. citizens. Although Tea Party Web sites
claim to be nonpartisan, beliefs tend to lean conservative, even more so than
typical Republicans.
Eighteen percent of respondents in an April New York Times poll identified themselves as Tea Party supporters, and since then numbers have likely increased due to dissatisfaction with taxes, the oil spill, and the Obama Administration in general.
Despite the 18 percent self-identification nationwide, the Tea Party movement
has not been as prominent in the political atmosphere of Pittsburg. Although the
town is often seen as more conservative because of its location in the "Bible Belt," both the Pittsburg section of the Tea Party Patriots Web site www.teapartypatriots.org and the less-official www.teaparty.org have only 11 members respectively.
The Pittsburg KS Tea Party page on Facebook is "liked" by 49 people, but "liking" takes much less commitment from someone with a casual interest than
becoming an official Tea Party member.
Caleb Hays, sophomore in computer science and Spanish, and member of
PSU's College Republicans, is at least one student involved in the Tea Party
movement. Hays is the Labette County coordinator for conservative Kansas
senatorial candidate Todd Tiahrt, and the contact number on the Pittsburg
KS Tea Party page on Facebook leads directly to Hays' personal voice mail.

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