A Dispatch from the Tea Party Election Night Gala

Greetings liberal elitist pantywaists, I’m writing to you from the heart of Real America. That is to say, I’m writing from the Tea Party Election Night Hoedown in the Clackamas, OR Monarch Hotel, right off I-205, across from the Old Spaghetti Factory.

A lady just took my picture blogging next to one of Victoria Taft’s bloggers. She said the juxtaposition of me as a twenty-something and him as a sixty-something in denim formal was a great photo-op. Remember how I was going to try a pickup line on someone here, damn the torpedoes, because Ezra thought it would be funny? I am now confirming that would not be funny, it would be dangerous. 98% of everyone here is over 40, married and, were the atmosphere not so jubilant, clearly willing to pick a fight. So I’m pussing out and giving up that plan (even though I thought of a really good one: “I know you’re conservative, but I can think of one thing that’s too big to fail and it could really use your stimulus package”).

But they’re not racists, OK?! I saw one black dude, one Latino couple and a disabled Asian lady, so we’re covered. In fact, that’s just the type of thing you would say, isn’t it? “From coast to coast they called us racists, they called us Astroturf!” says one of the white people in suits onstage. “When I look around us tonight, do you know what I see? Winners.” And the white people clap their white hands and everyone gets a little moist around the eyes/pants.

Some other dude is onstage now and he’s talking about how, though they may not win the Senate tonight, the Tea Party has just begun. “I’ve been to a lot of Tea Parties and I have yet to find a wing-nut or a screwball in one of these places.” He goes on to say that they’re full of Democrats, Republicans, Independents and, most of all, Americans. I don’t know who this dude is because I am thinking back to when I was in the super-long drink line talking to a woman named Marie. She asks what newspaper I’m from and I tell her The Mercury. There’s a long pause as she stares into the space over my shoulder. “It’s an alternative weekly in Portland,” I start before she cuts me off. “That’s OK,” she reassures me. “You’ve got to start somewhere.”

Marie deigns to talk to me as long as I don’t throw in any of the media’s usual Liberal bias. She tells me about how she knows Obama is a liar because she learned how to spot liars thanks to her ex-husband. She can see it in their eyes. How come nobody else can see it? Who knows. Obama has completely destroyed this country by sabotaging it’s unity. Also he is secretly using our tax dollars to fund ESL and free medical treatment for illegal immigrants who show up in our hospitals unable to speak English. This is why we are in debt. Her sister works in a hospital, so she knows. Oh wait, that dude is talking again about Real American common sense; I better listen.

Observations I don’t want to organize into paragraph form as I drink myself senseless on this double rum and Coke:

A man with five teeth bumping into Victoria Taft as she tries to politely edge past. “Tired yet?” he rumbles, grinning. “Still got yer voice?

A guy in a suit saying into the microphone, “I’m here with the Debt is Too Damn High Party” to a chuckling audience. “He stole that joke from me!” yells another white guy in a suit, running onstage.

Tea Party playlist: Don Henley McLean “American Pie” (sorry I originally said Don Henley wrote this terrible song. I’m the opposite of embarrassed that I didn’t know that), Toby Keith’s “The Angry American (Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue)”, Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down” (twice!) and this, the far Right’s answer to Lady Gaga, Krista Branch’s “The Worst Fucking Song You’ll Ever Hear”: