Tea party hopes to plant local roots in Virginia for next year's statewide elections

By Rosalind S. Helderman and Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 26, 2010; 12:22 AM

With the November elections behind them, tea party activists are working to solidify their movement by pivoting quickly to state and local issues they think will allow them to show that theirs was not a one-time uprising tied to this year's congressional contest.

A major focus will be Virginia - one of only four states to hold elections next November. They are also launching a political action committee to recruit, train and fund candidates, and help them drive a legislative agenda during January's General Assembly session.

The groups see the state's legislative contests as an opportunity to build a network of officials who someday can rise through the ranks and compete for statewide offices.

The tea party's record in this year's Virginia congressional races was mixed. Local groups splintered among multiple candidates during GOP nominating contests in June in two congressional districts that were held by Democrats.

But by this month, they had largely rallied around three Republican nominees, state Sen. Robert Hurt (Pittsylvania) and Scott Rigell in Virginia Beach, along with Del. H. Morgan Griffith (Salem). All three defeated incumbent Democrats.

In Northern Virginia, a Republican who ran with tea party help - Oakton businessman Keith Fimian - failed to unseat Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D).

Karen Miner Hurd, founder of the Hampton Roads Tea Party, said she and others now recognize the benefits of experience and creating "a candidate farm club and a bench for conservatives out of the grass roots."

The new strategy represents something of a course correction for a movement that this year often promoted political newcomers.

FreedomWorks, a national tea party group led by former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), and other national and local groups are working to ferment and expand their organizations in battleground states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Florida.

For the national groups, assisting activists with local elections helps sustain grass-roots enthusiasm with an eye toward the next round of congressional elections - and the presidential contest - in 2012.

And for the activists, local and state elections are opportunities to nurture candidates who share their political beliefs and to win offices the activists say hold the most influence over people's lives. After all, they say, their movement is built on the premise that power should be concentrated locally instead of in Washington.

"The tea parties are growing momentum every day," said Fran Telarico, a tea party organizer near Fort Collins, Colo., who is helping build a communications network among other local groups in Colorado to look ahead to 2012 as well as local races. "There are more people joining tea parties now than ever."

Opportunities in 2011

The immediacy of Virginia's next election cycle offers particular opportunities.

"Virginia is a big 2011 state," said Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks. "We plan to have a big impact in that election."

To do so, said Hampton Roads' Hurd, Virginia's tea party groups must coalesce around candidates in GOP primaries.

She said the PAC - called the Virginia Tea Party Alliance - will target Democrats, who hold a narrow majority in the state Senate, as well as "tax-loving Republicans."

Leading Republicans in the state Senate have repeatedly joined Democrats on budget issues, often clashing with more conservative members of the GOP who control the House of Delegates.

"The RINOs know who they are," Hurd said, referring to those she thinks are "Republicans in name only."

"Any Republican who's voted for tax increases or who's voted to restrict our rights under the Second Amendment," she said, "they should definitely be looking over their shoulders."

Already, a tea party-backed candidate has announced that he plans to challenge the Senate's leading Republican, Thomas K. Norment (James City County), for the GOP nomination.

By targeting sitting Republicans, the tea party will probably clash with the GOP establishment in some areas. Elsewhere, they would work with Republican leaders to back conservative candidates. Regardless, Hurd said, the goal will be to help tea party candidates win Republican nominations rather than to run third-party campaigns.

School, county offices

In Powhatan County, they hope to unseat a Board of Supervisors chairman who has been in office for 40 years. In Smyth County, near the Tennessee border, a local tea party plans to run slates of candidates for the Board of Supervisors and school board.

"The way we look at it is that if we work at the local level and get people in power - and we do it in each and every county in the state - we'll have more power across the state," said Ron Blevins, founder of the Southwest Virginia Tea Party.

Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple (Arlington), who chairs the Democratic caucus in the state Senate, said the move by the tea party groups will be good for her party.

"By and large, the tea party is more conservative than the rest of Virginia," she said. "This is a purple state. . . . If you can't appeal to the center, you're not going to be successful."

But the tea party groups think they can achieve steady local success, which will be key to avoiding throwing untested newcomers into tough races in future years. On Tuesday, they won a Republican nomination for a special state Senate election; tea party-backed lawyer Bill Stanley defeated four other Republicans in a firehouse primary in Southwest Virginia.

"For us to be effective, we have to learn the process. And we have to learn the process from the bottom up," said Mark Kevin Lloyd, chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party. "When you have someone who's a political neophyte, and they jump into a bare-knuckled senatorial or congressional race, shoot, you gonna come out of that with knuckle bumps you weren't expecting."

Even before the elections, Virginia's activists plan to push an ambitious agenda during January's legislative session. How incumbents vote on the issues will help determine which face tea party challenges in the months ahead.

Top on the list is a bill expressing Virginia's support for a federal constitutional amendment to invalidate acts of Congress if two-thirds of state legislatures agree.

Some activists will also push for the elimination of the state's corporate income tax and for a bill that would make illegal in the state a federal cap on power plant emissions - the centerpiece of cap-and-trade proposals.

Party on a plate

One bill, submitted by a delegate from the Richmond area, would create a tea party license plate featuring the coiled rattlesnake from the Gadsden flag, which is often associated with the movement.

"This year, we did the best we could with the hand we were dealt," Hurd said. "But how do you effect change? You do it at the local level. Don't forget: Barack Obama was a state senator first."

heldermanr@washpost.com gardnera&washpost.com