No Runny Eggs

I took a look at the map and the clock and decided not to go to Fort Atkinson’s tea party, opting instead to make Appleton’s. I’m too tired to offload the pics off my camera and make sure they’re halfway-decent, but I’ll crib off my Tweets:

– There ended up being somewhere around 3,000 people, as the Fox Banquets parking lot ended up being jammed up.
– No current politicians were up at the microphone, but we did get a brief appearance from former state treasurer Jack Voight.
– After the opening invocation, we got a history lesson – Since the Brits spent themselves out of money, they looked at the American colonies as a piggy bank. The colonists responded with the original tea party and ultimately the Revolution.
– Speaking of history, one of the speakers (didn’t have a working recorder, so I don’t remember his name) pointed out that at one time, each party had a low-tax champion, and that both parties are currently ignoring their legacies.

I do have numbers from a couple of other Wisconsin Tea Parties:

– Superior – 100
– Eau Claire – 300
– Wausau – “hundreds”

I was hardly alone covering the Madison Tea Party:
– Lance Burri with the pic dump.
– Randy Hollenbeck (do not miss the two-page photo gallery)
– Denise of Finding a Balance
– Fred Dooley (first is his personal blog, Real Debate Wisconsin, second is the MacIver Institute)
– Christian Schneider
– MadisonConservative

Revisions/extensions (11:13 pm 4/15/2009) – Paul Socha has a good write-up and a heap of pics. Somehow I missed him.

I’ve got a couple minutes between Madison’s Tea Party and Fort Atkinson’s, so I’ll put a couple thoughts up on what 5,000-6,000 of my closest friends and I saw and heard.

– The theme of the day is that elections matter. It isn’t enough to be involved today; we need to be involved tomorrow, next week, next month, and next election.

– I should’ve brought the Big Black Camera. It was far too bright to get good pics off the Blackjack.

– It was refreshing to hear both Reince Priebus (RPW chair) and Rep. Paul Ryan note that both parties are at fault for this. Ryan did, however, forget that his votes of last year, and his vote for the 90% TARP tax, are also parts of this.

– Superior mayor Dave Ross wondered where the higher-taxes rally was. I submit it was inside that building we were in front of.

– Speaking of that building, and the party that controls it, they pulled a rather dirty trick by scheduling a whole host of committee hearings for during that rally. Leah Vukmir didn’t get out of her committee hearing until at the end.

– Personal lesson of the day; check the batteries in the voice recorder before bringing it. DVR #1 died about 30 minutes in, and DVR #2 died just as Vicki McKenna came out.

On to a quick look-in at Fort Atkinson, then a mad dash to Appleton.

Revisions/extensions (10:52 pm 4/15/2009) – Roland Melnick of Badger Blogger got a pic of THE SIGN OF THE DAY (that’s right; all credit goes to him, not me)

Click for the full-sized pic, and don’t forget to credit Roland

Michelle Malkin has the “short” history of the Tea Parties over at her place. It’s just short enough to read before heading out to your local Tax Day Tea Party.

I was fortunate enough to be in DC for the February 27 series of Tea Parties. I’ll be making the rounds around eastern Wisconsin today, so if you can’t make it to one of any number of Tax Day Tea Parties, stay tuned to your local blog.