With dozens of "Don't Tread on Me" flags lifting in the breeze and a bristle of signs objecting to most of what comes out of Washington, it was clear the Tea Party crowd gathered outside Dallas City Hall on Saturday was spoiling for an election day fight.
David W. Dye (left) came out to support the Tea Party movement on Saturday at Dallas City Hall. The crowd heard pleas for smaller government, prudent spending and personal responsibility." height="106" width="175">And then the immortal words of Twisted Sister added a pulsing exclamation point: "We're not gonna take it. No, we ain't gonna take it."
Celebrating the anniversary of the anti-big-government Tea Party movement, the crowd that organizers estimated at 2,000 heard passionate pleas for what they call the nation's founding principles: smaller government, prudent spending and personal responsibility.
And there was the occasional tweak at MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who chided the Tea Party movement for its lack of diversity but declined an invitation to visit the Dallas event.
Alfonzo "Zo" Rachel, one of several black speakers on Saturday, accused Olbermann and other liberal pundits of painting the Tea Party as unwelcoming to anyone but conservative white Christians.
"Now, answer this," he shouted to the crowd. "Am I welcome here?"
The response was a thunderous affirmation.
Organizers said the lineup of speakers had nothing to do with Olbermann's jab.
"This has been set for four weeks," said Phillip Dennis, founder of the Dallas group. "There were no speaker changes. This is just the way it worked out."
Scott Turner, a former defensive back in the NFL and a motivational speaker, compared his previous profession to the job ahead for Tea Party members.
"In the NFL, Sunday is the party. But the real work comes the week before. It takes all 53 members of the team to do their jobs," he said. "Well, Tea Party, here we are, getting ready for the game, ready for the battle. Whatever your job is, we need you in the game, your boots on the ground.
"We may just be one vote away, one candidate away," he said. "You never know. Are you ready?"
When he finished, one man rushed over, shook his hand and said, "If you ever decide to run for office, I'd help you!"
Turner, who isn't a Tea Party member but was happy to accept an invitation to speak, said he doesn't worry about party labels.
"We need servant leaders in government, who want to serve the people," Turner said. "That's where my heart is."
Many in the crowd, including Elida Muñoz of Carrollton, worry that programs like national health insurance are inevitable steps toward socialism, something she said she saw first-hand in her native Cuba.
"I saw what happened there," Muñoz said, "and what we had in Cuba was very much like this. So when the Tea Party started, I jumped in. I don't want [what happened in Cuba] to happen again."
Garry Morris of Frisco said he became more involved politically in the run-up to the 2008 elections because of issues like national health insurance and challenges to gun rights.
And he hears from people who are increasingly concerned about matters like the growing national debt.
"At work, some of the younger people will tell me, 'I voted for Obama, but now I find myself listening to conservative talk radio,' " he said.
Those shifts in thinking could begin to reshape Congress this fall, Morris said. He'd like to see it, but he wonders what that might mean to the Tea Party movement.
"I think like anything the challenge is keeping people engaged," he said. "If we have success, people will say 'We can go home now.' But we saw what happened the last time we did that.
"So that's the big challenge – keeping people motivated."
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