'Contract From America' Unveiled at DC Tea Party

WASHINGTON (April 15) -- For the second year running, Tax Day brought a surge of grass-roots energy to the nation's capital, as thousands of tea party faithful descended on the city today for a day of protests, rallies and activism led by conservative and tea party notables.

Addressing a raucous crowd in Freedom Plaza, former GOP Majority Leader and conservative activist Dick Armey said, "There's only one legitimate reason to levy a tax: to raise money. And when you do that, you should raise no more money than is absolutely necessary."

Advocating a tax reform plan called the Fair Tax, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., called for the abolition of both the income tax system and the Internal Revenue Service. "I want to make sure that April 15th is no longer considered Tax Day," Chambliss said. "I want to make sure that April 15th is just another average day in your life."

"The message is: smaller government and less taxes. Americans are hard workers when given the opportunity," said Luanne Hannah, who traveled from New York to attend the rally. "This is my first anniversary of being part of the movement," she added, noting that she attended her first event last year on Tax Day.

The tea party events around Washington were representative of a broader shift in the movement from a freewheeling anti-bailout, anti-health care protest movement to a more disciplined political force, with a sharp eye on the 2010 election cycle. Many of the invited speakers shied away from the health care activism that was prominently on display at earlier tea party rallies and focused instead on rallying grass-roots voter support for tea party-favored candidates in the November elections.

"It's all about this coming November," Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said, addressing the enthusiastic crowd. "We have to take the House, then the Senate. And two years from now, Barack Obama is a one-term president.

"And we're not just sending anyone to Washington this November," Bachmann said. "We're sending constitutional conservatives to Washington this November."

The group calling itself the Tea Party Express organized the morning rally, the last event in a 20-day swing across the nation. This morning, it released a list of both endorsements and targets for the midterm elections. The endorsement list included one Democrat, Rep. Walter Minnick, D-Idaho. Among the vulnerable members of Congress the tea party declared it's looking to unseat are Reps. Betsy Markey, D-Colo.; Gerry Connolly, D-Va.; Baron Hill, D-Ind.; and Barney Frank, D-Mass., as well as Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

"We kicked off this tour in Searchlight, Nev., a town of 500 people," Tea Party Express Co-Chair Mark Williams told reporters. "We have been very busy over the last couple of years laying the groundwork for a 2010 victory for the United States over this ideology that has us in its grasp right now.

"Since we started this tour, we have essentially been the news cycle," Williams said. "When we come into town and we pick a high-profile race of a particularly egregious violation of the public trust -- or the constitutional trust -- that makes news."

"What brings us out here today is that we're tired of being taxed out of our minds, and we're tired of not being heard," said Doris Arcement, who traveled from Mississippi and said she has been involved in the tea party protest movement since its beginning.

Completing her point, she added, "And I'm a registered voter."

The day culminated in a large rally at the foot of the Washington Monument late Thursday afternoon, featuring a veritable who's who of tea party notables.

Organized by conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks, it featured a diverse lineup of characters, like Bachmann and Ron Paul, R-Texas; musician Ray Stevens; former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Victoria Jackson; and pundits Tucker Carlson and Andrew Breitbart, among others. Musical interludes often punctuated the political speeches, rallying the enthusiastic crowd of several thousand.

"I haven't been to a rally since 1971, protesting the Vietnam War," said Harry Walker, who had traveled from Baltimore. Explaining his decision to attend, he said, "It's the intrusion of government in our lives. It's taking on roles that the Constitution and the Founding Fathers never envisioned."

The event also included the official rollout of a new media initiative: a "Contract From America." The contract, a twist on Newt Gingrich's 1994 "Contract With America" that helped Republicans recapture Congress that year, is a 10-point legislative platform focusing on economic issues.

"I think the Contract With America was a great time. It was probably the last time there was a real intellectual reform movement of economic conservatism in this country," said Ryan Hecker, the organizer of the project. "But this is definitely a bottom-up, crowd-sourced, new-media contract.

"From September to January, we had several hundred thousand people submit over a thousand ideas -- and debate them. We did a series of surveys to narrow them down. And in the last month and a half, we had an online vote," said Hecker. The vote narrowed the ideas down to 10 ideas -- which include "protect the Constitution" and "reject cap and trade" -- that were unveiled at the rally.

Hecker announced at the rally that Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., was the first official signatory, with other elected officials and congressional hopefuls expected to sign on soon.