The Hartford Tea Party

HARTFORD, Conn. — On July 4th, one thousand rebels rushed the state capitol, shouting the battle cry: “Throw the bum out!” The bum was Senator Chris Dodd, the occasion, a tea party. For three hours, Dan Reale, a 27-year-old Libertarian from Plainfield, Conn., passed a microphone to speakers who denounced Dodd and other politicians for shackling their constituents to an ever-growing national debt. Critics call these people fire-eaters, but I call them conservatives—conservatives who are looking for a leader.

By “conservative” I don’t mean “Republican.” The event’s planners were Libertarians, who lambasted both parties. “Republicans are really desperate right now; they didn’t do what they said they were going to do. Now, they’re trying to hijack what Ron Paul’s supporters started,” Reale told me. Still, the crowd was rather conventional. One speaker, John Mertens, won cheers when he espoused term limits, but earned jeers when he endorsed legalizing marijuana. Another, Vincent Arguimbau, was shouted off the stage after he rebuked George W. Bush.

Culture warriors and security hawks squabbled, but they united on one man: President Barack H. Obama. Posters slammed him on every issue. Cap and trade? “Crap and trade.” Auto bailouts? “Bail yourself out.” Universal healthcare? “Don’t kill grandma!” A few signs were brutal: “Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing their idiot.” But most people were more measured—or at least less partisan. For instance, Joe Markley, a former State Senator who spoke, dubbed former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson “a Klingon.”

These protests strain the ear, but they vent conservatives’ frustration with liberals—now in almost complete control—who want to extend government’s reach over larger swaths of our lives. Unfortunately, middle-class conservatives assume that if you’re a member of the “elite,” you’re liberal. When I revealed that I wrote for The Harvard Crimson, one man asked me, “Are you going to write about how dumb we are?” A second warned that the crowd might run me out of town.

But conservatives need a leader, someone who can fortify common ground—fiscal prudence—and navigate disputed territory—foreign policy and social issues. “There’s no counterweight to these socialists,” said David Aron, a 25-year-old from Hamden, Conn. But who will that counterweight be? “I’m excited about Palin, Romney…” Melissa Welsh, an onlooker, told me, her voice trailing off as she hit the bottom of a short list. Conservatives shouldn’t write off their elite; they need them. After all, the Founding Fathers weren’t populists.

And a Libertarian won’t be that leader. Reale wisely stressed commonalities: “We’re not going to agree on everything, but we do agree that spending is out of control.” His colleagues, however, were politically clumsy. Peter Schiff, an economist who Libertarians hope will be the Republican candidate against Dodd, spoke to the crowd—for an agonizing half hour. In his speech, he dissected the history of the Federal Reserve—the most boring topic he could choose—and the crowd’s attention melted away.

The problem with Libertarians is that they don’t politick. They lecture. Discourses on monetary policy attract audiences, but those audiences consist of other Libertarians. To recruit more troops, conservatives of all stripes must retool their rhetoric. They have a right to be angry—spending is out of control—but in politics you don’t get angry, you get even. You get elected. And to get elected you use humor, to show you’re even-keeled.

So the search continues. But potential leaders could learn some jokes from the rank-and-file. For example, when one speaker asked the crowd, “What would happen if we refused to pay our taxes?” a spectator quipped, “We’d get a Cabinet job!”


Brian J. Bolduc ’10, a Crimson editorial writer, is an economics concentrator in Winthrop House.