“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think—”
“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. –—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
After further review of recent developments in City Politics we have made a startling discovery. The local group Toledo Tea Party doesn’t model itself after the Boston Tea Party, that wee dustup in Seventeen and Seventy Three in which colonists destroyed a tea shipment in protest of a tax act passed in the British Parliament.
Granted, the local tea baggers most likely think they are following in the footsteps of folks like ol’ Sam Adams who was a leader of the resistance to the Tea Act. Adams was a Harvard grad and member of a prominent family who wrote extensively on the lack of colonial representation in Parliament and the rights of colonial leadership. This gained a substantial following among prominent Bostonians in the late Eighteenth Century.
Not much resemblance to the minuscule if rough and rowdy cabal that calls itself the Toledo Tea Party. Nope, these crazies are much more aligned with the characters from the Mad Tea Party in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Sold a Bill of goods
Consider the most prominent local players. The TTP founder, John McAvoy, not only doesn’t live in Toledo, he doesn’t even live in Lucas County. This resident of Millbury in Wood County spends his time firing potshots at incumbent local elected officials, while saying he won’t run for office because the bylaws of his group prevent it. The fact that he can’t run where he doesn’t live seems to have escaped our Johnny.
Then there’s board member Mario Goveia who spends his free time spewing out emails to local electeds and media outlets. Big Mar seems quite sure of himself as he brays about liberal bias, never noticing that he is in turn spouting unsubstantiated claims from the far right.
It should thus be no surprise that local candidates running with such stellar support would be closer to the Mad Hatter and the March Hare than Samuel Adams. The TTP website notes that they won a stunning fifty two races in the May 6th primary. Impressive, until you understand that, even if that number was true, the vast majority were precinct-level races within the Republican Party and were uncontested.
Facts be damned, and full speed ahead! The tea baggers are “just getting started,” they crowed on their website on May 16, immediately thereafter begging for money because their coffers were depleted.
Yep, they were just getting started all right. Most of their site is devoted to bashing GOP Party Chair Jon Stainbrook, tea bagger enemy number one for having the temerity to think they’re a bunch of numb nickels.
The tea bag hero is the bellicose Bill Delaney who defeated Stainbrook for a seat on the GOP State Central Committee. Delaney ran for Toledo City Council last year as an independent, bragging that would make him not beholden to political parties. Like the GOP. Which he now wants to lead.
Ready to go through Alice’s looking glass? Delaney was quoted last fall as saying, “I’m honest. I can be trusted.” Then he decided to become beholden to a political party.
Perhaps more telling is the website devoted to Delaney’s run to become Chairman of the local GOP. We clicked on the tab entitled, “Mandate for Change.” We got the answer we were after as the text loaded thoughtfully, “Nothing Found. It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching would help.” Indeed.
Of course the real mandate Delaney might have been following was to disrupt the meeting that re-elected Stainbrook by yelling and catcalling from the peanut gallery.
Or consider the strange story of the strange opponent to Rep. Marcy Kaptur for Toledo’s 9 Congressional District, Richard May. His website says his qualifications stem from his work as a former warehouse manager, giving him the skills “to overview.” Which is a noun, and thus makes absolutely no sense in that usage. But he also says he’ll “keep his word.” Which is cool.
His apparent slogan is “Keep your doctor, change your Congressperson.” We guess that’s some weak shot at the Affordable Care Act. Since there are no issues statements on his site or his Facebook page we can’t be certain.
Fuzzy piece of history
He also seems a bit fuzzy about the reference inherent in the Tea Party name. His Facebook cover photo looks like Union troops charging into a battle during the American Civil War. Scary thought indeed, and it’s even scarier if you see the leering profile pic of this oddball. But you probably won’t see him in person. In response to the debacle at the GOP reorganization meeting May has suspended his campaign activities in Lucas County. Yes, those massive, stadium-filling rallies will soon disappear.
Who are we kidding. We’ve never seen nor heard of the stiff. His Facebook page has a staggering seventyfour “Likes,” a few less than your cousin’s basement band Spewy and the Pukes.
So long to the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, then. ‘Cause May will soon be deader than a dormouse.’
