Sunday, September 12, 2010

FreedomWorks’ 9/12 March on Washington draws Tea Partiers to D.C.



09/12/2010
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller

On Sunday, for the second year in a row, former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks organization hosted a 9/12 March on Washington in Washington, D.C. The focus of this year’s political rally was on the Contract From America, a plan FreedomWorks has been asking politicians to sign and pledge to follow. The Contract is aimed at reducing spending and government involvement in people’s lives.

“It always boils down to one thing: we need to get the government to understand its limitations, reduce its size and reduce its burden on the economy,” Armey said.

Houston Tea Partier Ryan Hecker wrote the Contract From America and told The Daily Caller he’s amazed at all the people who came out to the 9/12 rally, even though it was a rainy day in the District.

“It’s incredible [to see all these people out here],” Hecker said. “It just goes to show that we’re going to stand up for what we believe in and that we’re not going away.”

FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe estimated the crowd size at around 100,000 Tea Partiers, a crowd smaller than last year’s march, something he said may be partly attributable to the fact several 9/12 rallies were going on simultaneously nationwide and that Fox News personality Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally was held in Washington at the end of August.

“There’s 9/12 events all over the country today, and, in a lot of ways, that’s the ultimate success, because we want folks to bring it back to local communities,” Kibbe told TheDC. “But, we still have north of 100,000 people here. This is a big crowd of people.”

Blogger and media personality Andrew Breitbart told TheDC that he’s upset with how the media portrays Tea Partiers, and expects more of the same rhetoric from the media covering the rally.

“They [Tea Partiers] withstood four seasons of nonstop attack from the media class to cast dispersions on them of the worst possible kind,” Breitbart said. “They’ve learned the great trick is that the bullets that the media shoot at you are lollipops. You just grab them in the middle of the air and start sucking on them.”

Breitbart said the mainstream media has regularly tried to “sway the American public,” but the Tea Party movement resembles a “great political awakening” and a “great media awakening,” even though he highly doubts the mainstream media will report fairly on the 9/12 rally

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