Contract with the Constitution’ gathers steam at San Antonio Tea Party

Another tea party has come, but not gone. The momentum is still building in the Lone Star state with other tea parties brewing everywhere! This event was held at the Rio Cibilo Ranch located at 1101 Ulrich Rd in Marion, Texas. Robin Juhl, chairman of the San Antonio Tea Party (SATP) bid all in attendance welcome.

---

Ray Massey began the opening prayer and emcee Evan Sayet got things going. The list of speakers included; Dr. C.L. Gray, M.D. on health care reform, Katharine Moreno, Dr. Donald R. May, Sgt. John Shirley, Allan Parker, Mr. S. Joseph (Joe the plumber) Wurzelbacher and Mr. Marcus Luttrell author of “Lone Survivor”. Below are just a few personal observations on those there. Gail Kaciuba, treasurer of the SATP, told me that Governor Perry appeared on stage in order to be the first politician to sign SATP's Contract with the Constitution. The emcee, Evan Sayet, was intelligent, on-target for the issues, and extraordinarily funny. Marcus Luttrell, Navy SEAL and author of "Lone Survivor" told a small portion of his tale about his heroic experiences in Afghanistan. Gail said she was particularly inspired by the words of "Joe the Plumber". Many people only know Joe from his "15 minutes of fame" when his simple question to then-Senator Barak Obama exposed to the world the redistributionist policies of the presidential candidate. But Joe is intelligent, heart-felt, and well-spoken. Joe reminded the audience that we must all take personal responsibility for letting the government get to the inflated stage it's at. Julia Hayden, media relations expert of the SATP voiced her observation of the event; “It did go pretty well, with about the usual ration of glitches. The heat was awful, but what do you expect of South Texas in July! The medical volunteers were absolutely tireless, circulating with water, keeping a very sharp eye on people. Fortunately, temperatures cooled down as the evening approached. The Governor's visit was first put to us as being fairly brief: he would come in, go on stage, sign the contract and leave. In actuality he stayed for about three hours, first in the "cool zone" where the V.I.P. dinner with Marcus Luttrell and Joe the Plumber was located and then in the backstage area, outside. Of course, there was a fair amount of local media interest: Fox News, Univision, KSAT-12, KENS-5, and the San Antonio Express News were all present, and filed generally favorable stories afterwards.” At the end of the event, the police told Matt Perdue of the SATP board that they estimated attendance at 5,000 people. I have learned the SATP has a couple of different aims. One is simply to gather people who have some of the same concerns about various recent administration policies, above all the horribly bloated yet strangely unread stimulus package. That was the focus of the April 15th Tax Day protest. The 4th of July event was a celebration of our country, a means of educating attendees about the rights and responsibilities of citizens under the Constitution and to unveil SATP’s long term project called "contract with the constitution". The contract is on the website, [url=http://www.sanantonioteaparty.org]http://www.sanantonioteaparty.org[/url]. It’s a statement of principles with which they will be asking elected officials to agree. They hope to have this contract adopted nation wide by other tea parties and to use this as a litmus test in judging all elected officials. They will keep track of those who sign the contract, those who refuse to sign the contract, and those who make the pledge and then go on to approve “contrary policies.” I’m already girding my loins for the next tea gathering. I hope to see you there. Source: The SATP at Sanantonioteaparty.org