My first stop was at ABC-13 on Bissonnet, arriving at 12:30 pm. Josh Parker with the Houston Tea Party Society was on hand to coordinate. There were about 30 protesters lined up on the sidewalk in front of the studios. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and cars were honking in support as they drove by.
From there, I headed over to CBS-11 on Allen Parkway, arriving at 1:00 pm. There were about the same number of protesters but one of them told me that there were about 75 people around noon. I’m not sure which group was coordinating this one but I did see a person wearing a t-shirt from the group that broke away from the HTPS, the Houston Tea Party Patriots. John Faulk, one of the candidates running to unseat Sheila Jackson Lee was there passing out ice cream. The only horns I heard were directed at John when he was crossing Allen Parkway with his ice cream cart! That guy is everywhere!
After enjoying one of John’s vanilla bars, I proceeded downtown to the Houston Chronicle building, arriving at 1:30 pm. There were about 40 people gathered there, although one protester named Cookie came over to make certain that I got the count right, saying there were about 80 protesters at the peak of the rally. This site was coordinated by the North Houston Tea Party Patriots.
Although I didn’t make it to the NBC-2 location, from the pictures and video I’ve seen on Facebook, it looks like that was the largest of the four, maybe 100 protesters. All in all, that would make about 300 or so protesters willing to spend some time on a beautiful fall afternoon in Houston getting their message out. Speaking of getting the message out, I found one report on ABC-13 and one brief mention in the Chronicle. Someone made a comment on Facebook that CBS-11 also mentioned the rally but I couldn’t find it.
There is much speculation in the media and elsewhere about the future of Tea Parties. Will this be the future? Small, focused rallies designed to draw attention to specific issues? Or will they eventually morph into a political party in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans?
Although I have no inside information and understand that starting a viable third party will be extremely difficult, if the people that I talk to at these rallies are any indication, they will go the third party route. Interestingly, aside from Barack Obama, their greatest dissatisfaction lies with the Republican Party. I think that is because they feel so betrayed by Republicans during their brief reign in power. They very much understand the hypocrisy of Republicans being against the current healthcare reform after it was Republicans that pushed through one of the greatest deficit programs in history, the Medicare prescription drug program. I said early on in this movement that Republican officeholders should treat this group as potential voters and not take them for granted at the ballot box. I think that is even truer today than it was seven months ago.