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Posted on Thu, Nov. 05, 2009

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national tour makes stop at Lawrence-Dumont

Crowd greets Tea Party bus

BY FRED MANN

The Wichita Eagle

WICHITA — They came dressed as Betsy Ross, Patrick Henry and Death.

One rode a horse; another rode a unicycle.

But nearly everybody who attended Wichita's fourth tea party carried signs.

"We Want Our Country Back," "Wake Up America" and "Nobama Death Care," some of them said.

The signs — as well as blue skies, warm weather and a large midday crowd — greeted the national Tea Party Express II bus tour in the parking lot of Lawrence-Dumont Stadium on Wednesday.

Titled "Countdown to Judgment Day," the tour is on a 19-day, 7,000-mile journey across America with stops at rallies in 38 cities.

Members of the tour entertained the crowd with songs and speeches calling for change in Washington D.C.: less government spending, less government intrusion, an end to bailouts, an end to Democrat leadership in the House and Senate, and an end to President Obama's health care reform plans.

Organizers estimated the crowd at 1,500 to 1,700. Police at the scene estimated it at 2,000.

Fifteen people showed up to protest the tea party.

Tiffiny Ruegner, field coordinator for the tour from Sacramento, compared the size of the crowd in Wichita to one the tour drew in Denver on Tuesday night.

"Because this is at one o'clock on a Wednesday in the middle of the workweek, this is huge," she said.

When the caravan pulled into the stadium parking lot with a 30-motorcycle escort, Shara McMichael of Wichita was among those who moved forward to get a better look, snap photos and cheer.

She said she attended the event "just because I'm tired of sitting around my living room with my family talking about what changes need to be made and what's going on. We can't sit around and talk about it anymore. We've got to do something,"

"One voice does make a difference, and when you have several hundred or 2,000, it's going to be heard," she said.

Deborah Johns, co-chair of the tour, introduced herself as the angry mom of a Marine who is serving his third term in Iraq. Her anger was aimed at the Obama administration, she told the crowd.

"We have a president who came dressed as Little Red Riding Hood who turned out to be the big bad wolf that is doing nothing but dismantling this country from the inside out," Johns said.

"It's time politicians in Washington get the message. The constitution begins, 'We the people', not 'We the politicians.' "

She also told the people they were making history.

"You've got the politicians in Washington bamboozled. They can't figure you out," she said.

The tour vice chairman, Mark Williams, a freelance radio talk show host from Boston, urged the crowd to work hard for political candidates who "stand up for working people" and want to return America to "the country it was meant to be."

The anti-tea party protesters held signs of their own, such as "Tea Party for Injustice" and "Congressional Health Care for All."

One of the protesters, Janice Bradley of Wichita, said tea parties are large corporate-funded efforts that are trying to turn people against their own interests.

"They're creating fabrications about government-run health care, all kinds of lies about death panels. The death panels are the insurance companies right now," Bradley said.

The event ended with tributes to American soldiers and veterans, chants of U-S-A, and patriotic songs.

Lynda Tyler of Kansans for Liberty, who helped organize the event, said she was thrilled with the turnout on a midweek afternoon.

"For every person out here, there's probably at least 10 or 20 who couldn't get off work and be here," she said.

Reach Fred Mann at 316-268-6310 or fmann@wichitaeagle.com.