Admiring the passion of the Tea Party, if not the knowledge

By Jon Ralston

Friday, April 16, 2010 | 2 a.m.

I know it’s a low bar to surmount, but I found I liked the folks at the Carson City Tax Day Tea Party a whole lot better than I like most of the titled people who populate the Legislative Building for a spell in odd-numbered years.

Why? Because unlike too many in the Gang of 63, the Tea Partyers are real, without pretensions, delusions or haughtiness. And on a proportional basis, I am not sure which group is more confused about public policy.

Yes, the 500 (max) or so who gathered on the lawn and lined Carson Street displaying their colorful placards had the same kind of intellectually unmoored anger for the sake of anger as those at the Showdown in Searchlight. They were mad as hell, although not unpleasant, and weren’t going to take it anymore, although I am not so sure they knew what it was.

What they do know, though, is where the enemy resides — on Capitol Hill (“Downsize government, close Washington,” read one sign). And they do know what they want, too — the end of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s career. And, eventually, the president’s, too.

But none of them seemed particularly unpleasant (one woman snarled at me for daring to show up, but everyone else was quite amiable). The signs and T-shirts seemed more dangerous than the people holding them, although ignorance may be more invidious than hatred. Some of them were doozies:

• Shirts: “The only thing I hate about Nevada is … Harry Reid.” And: “Reid is treasonous.” And: “Christian. American. Heterosexual. Pro-Gun. Conservative. Any questions?”

• Signs: “Evil mongers will get justice.” And: “Wake up Democrats. It’s ‘We the People’ not you ‘The Dictators.’ ” And: “Remember the ‘New Deal’ — Now we have the ‘RAW Deal’ — Redistribute American Wealth.”

There was also a portrait of George Washington, with a bubble blaring, “WTF?” And a display urging President Barack Obama to “Return to Kenya” and asking him to “Ried this” — yes, Reid was misspelled — next to facsimiles of cow pies. (I kid you not.) And, yes, there was a dog whose posterior had been festooned with the words: “Hope & Change.”

(For a gallery of photos showing some of these, go to twitter.com/ralstonflash.)

So, yes, the partyers are also coarse, raw and vulgar. And some are really out there. But they are, as I said, real — and a real threat to Reid and the Democratic ticket in Nevada this year.

And not just Harry, either. At least a couple of the signs indicated that, as I have written many times, the sins of the father are being visited on the son. For instance, one sign said; “No Harry or Rory Reid in 2010. Freedom for Americans.”

I don’t believe one person in that crowd could tell me a vote Reid the Younger has taken or a stand he has offered. I’m not even sure they know much about Reid the Elder’s record, other than he is one of them and not one of us.

Even though the notion is ludicrous that Dad wants to create a dynasty by installing son as governor, I am sure many in the crowd viscerally believe that, even though Reid the Elder knows Reid the Younger’s candidacy is toxic to his (and vice versa). But Democrats must realize the Tea Partyers will be even more motivated to topple a Reid-Reid ticket, which will materialize June 8, and if their anger and involvement can be sustained, that surely will help.

They want to, as the shibboleth went Thursday, take our country back — from exactly what, they may not know, but from whom, they know quite well. Gov. Jim Gibbons appeared briefly and thrilled the crowd with his anti-health care reform rhetoric (nationalize!) and my favorite: “You’ve lost representative government. We’ve got to take our government back.”

Wait. Wasn’t he elected as part of that representative government? Nevermind. He was on a roll.

And they ate it up on the grass in front of the Legislative Building. From Gibbons. From others, including a handful of U.S. Senate hopefuls or their understudies.

As much as I respect the passion and commitment of some of these folks, I got the same queasiness I did at the Showdown in Searchlight — a feeling that their fury can be so easily manipulated by demagogues punching the right phrases, serving the most flavorful Kool-Aid.

As the strains of “American Pie” — what many there must have thought is a patriotic song — blared from a loudspeaker, I wondered if by next year, Harry Reid might have caught his last plane for the coast and if Nov. 2 would mark the day that reason died.