Arnold City Park's 68-acre lake set the backdrop for the Jefferson County Tea Party Rally on Saturday.  During gusts of wind, the fountain misted the crowd, a welcome refreshment on a bright, sunny day.  People set up lawn chairs in an orderly semi-circle facing the pavilion while others wandered and chatted, many carrying flags, signs and banners, waiting for organizer Ken Horton to introduce the speakers. 

     Maj. Richard Shular with the Arnold Police Dept. estimated between 2,500 and 3,000 who attended the rally, comparable, he said, to a good attendance for the city's annual Arnold Days event.  There were only two incidents that required police intervention - one woman requested help with a parking problem, and there was a verbal altercation with a small group having a birthday party at another pavilion.  Both incidents were resolved without escalating.

     "It went smoothly," Shular said.  "We're tickled to death."

     The long list of speakers included six candidates in this year's primary and general elections, radio host Dana Loesch, St. Louis Tea Party leader Bill Hennessy, and Derek Good who spoke about Jefferson County Charter Government. The crowd cheered when Horton announced, "The Militia is here!"

     The militia in question was the North Carolina Citizens Militia who, decked out in revolutionary period uniforms, took the long march from the parking lot to the pavilion to present the flag. 

     Horton quoted the Declaration of Independence, 'But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,' and followed, "I have one thing to say to the politicians in Washington.  You should get down on your knees and thank God that these guys are not alive today.  These guys would have saddled up long ago and headed to Washington, and not just to protest."

     He listed what he considers infringements, from bail outs and stimulus to unemployment and Cap and Trade.

     "We have enough energy resources right here in this country to power us for hundreds of years," Horton told the crowd.  "It just takes a president and a congress with a spine to stand up to these environmental nut jobs and say no more are we going to be controlled by these little dictators and tyrants in the Middle East."

     Horton followed with condemnation of the recently passed healthcare reform. 

     "For the first time, we are mandated to buy a service or product because we simply live and breathe in this country," he said.  "This bill has nothing to do with healthcare.  This is a way to control people.  It's another entitlement to get people dependent on the government."

     Healthcare, government spending, government control, and how to vote in August and November were the themes that wove their way through each speech.  The first speaker, 101st District State Rep candidate Charles Huey, kicked off with a promise to fight against the healthcare reform bill.

     "Today me and Ed Martin and a few other Republicans met with Lieutenant Governor, Peter Kinder," Huey said.  "By the end of this month, he will file a lawsuit against the Federal Government.  We will be fighting with Lieutenant Governor Kinder if me and Ed get into office."

     Ed Martin, who is one of three Republican candidates running against incumbent Russ Carnahan for US Rep. Dist. 3, echoed Huey's argument against the healthcare bill. 

    "We told them we didn't want it," Martin said.  "They shoved this healthcare government takeover down America's throats.  They cut our Medicare and they endangered our seniors, they put social security further at risk, they raised our taxes, created a brand new entitlement that we can't pay for."

     Martin's speech focused closely on taxes and government spending and he accused Carnahan of cronyism. 

     "Russ Carnahan's brother, Tom got $90 million in the stimulus bill for his wind farms outside of his district," Martin said.

     In spite of hosting four Republican candidates as speakers, Horton admonished the Republican Party. 

     "I'm going to ruffle some feathers, but I don't care about the Democratic or Republican thing anymore," he said.  "We have watched the Republican Party walk away from the conservative values for the last 10 years, and I'm done with the Republican name."

     Horton went on to chronicle events by administration, from the Iran hostage crisis during Carter's presidency, through Reagan's tax cuts during which Horton blames the deficit on overspending by a Democratic-controlled congress, and the balanced budget during the Clinton administration when he credits a Republican congress with "clipping his wings."  But the Bush administration disappointed him.

     "For whatever reason they decided to walk away from fiscal responsibility," Horton said.  "Here we finally get a president who says he's a fiscal conservative and a congress that claims to be fiscally conservative and they completely walk away from it.  In 2005, that's when I walked away from the Republican Party."

     Two non-Republican candidates spoke at the rally.  Democratic Third Dist. US Rep. Candidate Edward Crim received cheers when he said that he's a photographer, not a lawyer.  The crowd responded less enthusiastically when he explained that he's pro-life and a "fiscal responsibilist," but that he believes government programs were designed for times of high unemployment.

     Constitution Party Candidate for Missouri State Rep. Dist. 102 Richard Blowers challenged those in attendance to research each individual candidate.

     "With the duty and responsibility, we have to look at the people we're sending to office," Blowers said.  "We have to learn about them, learn what they stand for and not just base our decisions on their party affiliations.  Imagine going to the ballot box in November and opening it up and seeing nothing but names.  No party affiliations.  You just have the names.  You know a lot of people in this country would be completely lost." 

     Jefferson County Health Dept. Chairman Paul Wieland, a Republican candidate who is also running for the Dist. 102 State Rep. seat, believes that healthcare can be budgeted. Wieland said that several years ago when voters voted down a tax initiative, the board members and staff cut the budget every way they could.  

     "I don't think we gave up one ounce of quality," Wieland said.  "I think we're still getting the same quality from the Health Department that we've always had, but what we've done is we eliminated positions.  We started running our Health Department like you would run a business, not like a government bureaucracy.  I'm proud to tell you today, I'm reporting to my employers that as of the end of the year, December 31st, instead of having a $600,000 deficit, we actually had a reserve of a million dollars." 

     The final speaker, radio host Dana Loesch reminisced about growing up in Jefferson County and sand bagging during a flood at Arnold City Park, leading quickly into an attack on the healthcare bill.

     "We had a very unpopular piece of legislation that now is law, a piece of legislation that flies in the face of this Constitution, a piece of legislation that now mandates that simply by existing in this country, you have to purchase a product," Loesch said. 

     Loesch accused liberals of controlling the media and called on the crowd to get out the vote.

     "We've only been doing this for a year, but liberals have decades and decades on us," Loesch said.

     Later she drew a connection between personal commitment and supporting the military.

     "It is physically impossible for us to allow our veterans to come home and we sit on our laurels while the constitution is shredded in Washington DC," Loesch said. "You went out there and you fought for me?  I am not going to let you come home to a country that you cannot recognize."

     At the close of the rally, Horton said that the Tea Party would rally again about two weeks before the election.