Organizers said the tea party was a grassroots operation made up of average Minnesotans who linked up through the Internet and a few web sites.

But before the event, a spokeswoman for a liberal advocacy group charged that the rally was an "AstroTurf" event, that is, a fake grassroots affair, that was organized by "big corporations or lobbyists for big corporations." Denise Cardinal, executive director of the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, said that while she expected grassroots conservative activists to attend the rally, "the whole synthesis of this event comes from D.C.-based lobbyists."

Although many in the crowd of around 2,000 in St. Paul said the event was the beginning of a more vocal anti-tax groundswell, detractors dismissed the gathering as little more than a rehash of resentments fanned by talk radio and TV pundits.
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After Barb Davis White, a former congressional candidate spoke, a woman came up to her and gushed: "I pray for you and Michele Bachmann," a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota.

But tax day brought out defenders of taxes as well. At a noon news conference at the Capitol, one group, the Alliance For A Better Minnesota, announced an "It's Patriotic to Pay Fair Taxes" campaign. The purpose: to remind taxpayers of roads and teachers funded by their taxes.

You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not terribly sympathetic of those who are protesting that their taxes are too high. 98 percent of Americans are receiving a tax cut under the Obama administration, and the top 2 percent — those who can afford to take time off of work for protests like this — are calling a return to the Clinton tax rates “socialism.”j

The rallies in cities and counties around Minnesota and the nation are a protest against what participants consider to be out-of-control government spending.

The rallies in cities and counties around Minnesota and the nation are a protest against what participants consider to be out-of-control government spending.

Fashioned, of course, after the 1773 Boston Tea Party that helped connect the words “taxation” and “representation,” the modern-day Tea Party is also designed to let people put action behind their words.

It’s a “reaction to a $3.6 trillion federal budget and bailouts for people that have made less-than-wise decisions,” said Rollie Nissen, co-chair of the Kandi-yohi County Republican Party, sponsor of Wednesday’s event in Willmar.

Nissen said lawmakers need to listen to the “rank and file of the average citizen.”

The event is being billed nationwide as nonpartisan.

But when Nissen listed the local politicians he had contacted about the event, only Republicans were on the list.

The Star Tribune’s Bob Von Sternberg writes a piece entitled: “Tax day tea parties in the works.” A general reader of the Star Tribune may still assume that the “reporter” would have done some research and told the story behind the tax day teabagging.