Romney not quite winning Tea Party support

The Atlantic has a photo and coverage of a 400-person-small campaign event held in Philadelphia and reveals a stunning lack of actual tea Party support:

And so, on Monday, Romney attempted to thread the needle in Philadelphia. Before an unusually pro-Romney Tea Party group, he gave a speech that was longer on symbolism than persuasion, an attempt to show that the Tea Party is with him without necessarily showing that he is with the Tea Party.

The Independence Hall Tea Party Association, consisting of Tea Party groups from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was the first such group to endorse Romney, it claims. There were no “Don’t Tread on Me” flags or tricorne hats to be seen among the well-dressed, paying crowd at a downtown science museum, and many of the 400 attendees said they identified more as Republican Party activists than Tea Party members. One hesitates to generalize about a diverse grassroots movement, but this didn’t feel like the real Tea Party.

[...]Sam Rohrer, a Tea Party-aligned former Pennsylvania state legislator now running for U.S. Senate, said it wasn’t a representative Tea Party crowd. Most of the grass-roots Tea Party organizations in the state supported Rick Santorum before he suspended his campaign last week, and are now somewhat adrift as they try to assess where to go from here, Rohrer said in an interview.

“Ultimately, they’re not going to pull the lever for Obama, but there’s movement within the movement right now,” he said. “Mitt is going to have to woo them. Getting their vote is one thing; getting their impassioned commitment is another thing, and the impassioned commitment is what it takes to win.”

It’s starting to become something of a running joke with Romney’s crowd sizes as the media morons keep beating the inevitability drum and praying the voters will be blind to the Ron Paul revolution.

Since his campaign is now trying to claim he has some Tea Party groups supporting or endorsing him — the only question to ask is why won’t they come out to these campaign events in full force?

Update: Independence Hall Tea Party PAC — the Tea Party group that will be the first of many of these kinds of announcement — boasts on their website “On 8/28/10, the Independence Hall Tea Party sent 28 buses carrying over 1500 Patriots to Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally. No other group sent more.”

I’m betting barely a fourth of their members bothered to show up to the rally they hosted for Romney, and that’s right in their own town.

Update II: Anonymous “Jack” in the comments said the event was sold out, but… The National Franklin Memorial has a reception capacity of 700… so uh, argument over. Thanks for daring to impugn upon Hammer of Truth’s reputation and failing.

Again, that’s 700 capacity… 400 showed up. Reality is that Ron Paul’s supporters would have easily packed that place and had people overflowing outside regardless of “symbolic” whatsit.

posted Apr 18th, 2012 by vforvandyke · tags: ,
  • Jack

    “Stunning lack of Tea Party support”?  The room was entirely sold out.  If you had anything but a stunning lack of understanding of history, you would have realized the National Franklin Memorial venue was selected for Tax Day because of the symbolism of Ben Franklin.  You know, the Ben Franklin who said nothing is certain but death and taxes?  Perhaps you should read more history books than editions of the Atlantic.  You should be aware that another Philadelphia institute, the Pew Foundation, which leans lefts, has Romney ahead of Obama in today’s poll.  So, Romney hardly has a “stunning” lack of support.  Please be true to your website’s name.

    • http://vforvandyke.com/ Stephen VanDyke

       He has support against Obama in polls because there is a firm anti-Obama sentiment growing in the electorate in general, but the tea party is a large part of that Republican strategy and Romney isn’t close to having their united support.

      That’s a fact, Jack.

  • Jack

    Unfortunately, you’re wrong.  I was in the audience.  There was  no more room in the room — period. You seem to forget that at any campaign event, you have a large press presence.  Add to that a stage, lighting stands, secret service and other security staff, event staff, volunteers, chairs, ailes for people to get to their chairs, secure areas, etc. – and there was not a square foot left in the room.  Having rented Franklin Hall several times for my company, the only way you can get the maximum capacity of 600 into the room, is to have people stand shoulder to shoulder.  This was a nearly 2-hour sit-down event.  And some people were forced to stand in the ailes, because there were no more seats. 

    • http://vforvandyke.com/ Stephen VanDyke

      The capacity is 700. I’ve seen various photos of the event and think the venue was picked to max out the capacity with ease.

      And by the way, Franklin also had this to say, “The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George the III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War.”

      I have no doubt he would have supported Ron Paul’s quest to end the much loathed Federal Reserve with much enthusiasm.

      • Yes, Get Smart

        “the venue was picked to max out the capacity with ease”

        This.

  • Jag

    Ron Paul is having a rally ain Philly on the 22nd, It will have more people than this rinky dink Romney rally: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2012/04/17/ron-paul-to-hold-campaign-rally-on-independence-mall-in-philadelphia/

    • Gerard King

      You’re probably correct.  The Paul event is in front of Independence Hall — a free venue.  So, you’re bound get a bigger crowd there, since a lot of people don’t like spending any $ to attend events.  Whereas Paul can do an event at Independence Hall because of a lot of his members support Occupy, the same can’t be said of someone like Romney, who would be molested by Occupy.  I haven’t met a Romney person yet who has anything but disdain for Occupy, whose core beliefs involve redistrubtion of wealth and seizure of private property.  I actually saw more than one Ron Paul shirt on the Occupiers who were trying to get into the Romney event.

      • Jag

        “Occupy, whose core beliefs involve redistrubtion of wealth and seizure of private property”

        You’re a dumbass.

        • Gerard King

          Sorry, I didn’t realize this was an Occupy page.  My mistake. 

          • Jag

            We’re occupying your mom, she volunteered.

  • Gerard King

    Actually, Jack is correct.  I was there too.  No more room in the inn, as they say.  The only way you could have fit more people in there was to have people stand on top of each other.  I actually saw them turn a lot of people away at the door, who hadn’t purchased tickets and they otherwise couldn’t accommodate.  You might be able to accommodate 600 or 700 if you had people coming and going, but you couldn’t fit more than the number they had in the room at any one time w/ all the press and staff that was in there.

  • Get Smart

    Seating capacity for Franklin Hall is 600.  We had to make way for the massive media coverage–so
    we could only sell 400 seats and had to turn away hundreds.

    Stop spinning lies.

    Don Adams, Co-Founder
    Independence Hall Tea Party Association

    • Yes, Get Smart

      Meanwhile, a Ron Paul rally in Pittsburgh this weekend pulled in over 4K attendees, a rally on Sunday in Philly is expected to break 10K.

      Tell Romney to stop hosting his events in shitty little “symbolic” venues when we all know he can’t hold a candle to people who are supporting the TRUE CONSERVATIVE.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1094740203 Jason Sudduth

    That’s sad only 400 showed up. Meanwhile in Philadelphia this past weekend 4,400 Ron Paul supporters showed up in the rain to hear Dr. Paul’s message of liberty.

    Ron Paul 2012!!!

  • horsey

    NO ONE BUT PAUL!