Understanding the Tea Party Movement

Intrigued by the strength of the Tea Party in Whatcom County, which drew 800 members to Mount Baker Theater on Saturday evening, Feb. 20 – I passed the word that I wanted to talk to someone in the leadership.

Never mind that I am a self-described progressive – who walked our precinct for Obama and put up signs for Laurie, Carl and Dan in the last election.

When I was a freshman at a conservative church college – this was 1948 when Harry Truman was running for reelection – the head of the history and political science department fired two young professors for attending a CIO political action meeting. Their defense was that the union activity was a significant development in politics that behooved them, as political scientists and teachers, to understand the movement. (Truman, you may not remember, defeated Dewey in a giant upset largely because of union support.)

So, it is in this vein that I bring you this report, without distortion, of conversations with Randy Cross, who introduced himself on the phone as the president of the Whatcom Tea Party.

He said first that he and his cohorts are against the progressive aspects of the Republican and Democrat parties, “We need fiscal responsibility and states rights – bad things happen when good people don't stand up.”

He quoted the Tea Party's mission statement:
To reverse deficit spending and the concentration of power in central government in order to preserve states rights and individual liberty for future generations.

Cross emphasized that the focus of Tea Party is on “progressive” trends, defined by Dick Armey as, “Making people do what they would not do voluntarily."
Armey heads Freedom Works, the umbrella support organization for Tea Parties nationally, which boasts 800 thousand members.

“George Bush pushed some progressive ideas...John McCain is concerned about global warming and is for cap and trade,” Cross said.

I have read and heard comments that Tea Party members, most of whom are white, are aroused because Obama is black. After hearing Cross, I think their objection is to “change,” the big word in the presidential campaign.

“Progressives want to tell people how to live, they want to redistribute the fruits of my labor,” Cross said.

He quoted Thomas Jefferson, “When the government fears the people you have liberty, when the people fear the government, you have tyranny.” (If that seems absurd to you in the 21st century, talk the man who has a yellow, “Land Grab” sign on his property.)


Cross has been self-employed most of his life. First, he operated a business that distributed Amish art through 300 sales representatives who covered 27 trade shows a year. When imports destroyed that business, he conceived and developed Laser Point of Origin. That business, inscribing metal – think plaques – has been operating for 15 years. While the native art distribution was national, his present business gets most of its sales in Whatcom County.

For a dinner last Saturday night, honoring people who support military families, Cross and his wife donated 13 inscribed “Oscars.” For a refinery that wanted to recognize six thousand special workers during a turn-around, he put together a gift bag that included a t-shirt and laser inscribed water bottle.

A visitor to his studio is struck by a giant poster of Einstein and a row of books about cosmology. Cross said Stephen Hawking's “A Brief History of Time” changed his life. He pulled out a worn and highlighted copy that he said he's read 14 times. He has read more than 150 books on physics that he considers equal to a college degree.

Pointing to a small poster on the chronology of “The Big Bang,” Cross said, “Then God stepped back and let us run the universe.”

He attributes his political awareness and insight to his eight-year subscription to the Weekly Standard magazine.

Cross traces the formation of the Whatcom County Tea Party movement to February 2008, when friends decided to meet at the Five Columns restaurant. They expected five people. Forty showed up.

Last April 15, four thousand gathered across from Bellis Fair. Another demonstration is planned for this year's tax day.

National Republicans he approves of are Tom Coburn, Eric Canter, Mike Pense, Lamar Alexander, Lynn Cheney and Sara Palin.

In Whatcom County he approves of Pete Kremen and Sam Crawford. “Barbara Brenner--70 percent,” he said.

Locally, he is concerned about infringement on property rights, “our absolute right,” and the proposed WTA levy that he considers unnecessary – “WTA doesn't need that many empty buses running around.”

Cross does not see the Tea Party movement becoming a third party. “The intent is to reform Republicans from inside. Our role is to inform and educate, not endorse – let the voters decide.”

While he thinks there are members of the Whatcom Tea Party who are qualified for public office, he says that he has no interest in running.

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