Has the tea gone cold?

By RICHARD RIEHL -- For the North County Times | April 23, 2010

Has the local tea party movement reached its peak? Comparing this year's Oceanside event with last year's led me to that conclusion.

Last year's crowd, after being revved up by speakers at the Civic Center, marched to the pier to dump sandbags marked "tea" into the sea. It was a family affair, with lots of kids, a few of them in strollers. As they marched along, the angry crowd chanted "USA! USA! It was a festive affair, but the signs claiming our elected leaders were traitors were unnerving.

Organizers said there were at least 5,000 in attendance.

This year's event attracted only about 1,500 true believers to the pier amphitheater, according to police estimates, and produced a more sedate, sit-and-listen crowd. Promoted as a family-friendly affair with face-painting for the kids, I was struck by the shortage of children. On average, this year's partiers appeared to be about 10 years older than last year's.

The scheduled headliner, San Diego's favorite conservative radio talk jock Rick Roberts, failed to show up. A lesser known media personality, feeling the need to fire up his audience, repeatedly begged, "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" The tepid response indicated many were not familiar with that kind of rocking.

Despite the crowd's indifference to matters of municipal politics, a few City Council hopefuls showed up. When Oceanside recall survivor Jerry Kern breathlessly boasted of his victory over labor union attacks, the response was underwhelming.

Organized labor was not among the day's favorite targets.

Pandering reached its peak, though, with the arrival onstage of gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner. Dramatically declaring, "I don't like to pay taxes, do you?" he promised to cut taxes, put a stop to illegal immigration "once and for all," and sue the feds "all the way to the Supreme Court" to eliminate California's "man-made water shortage."

He failed to mention his Web site promises to make a "massive" investment in education and to build environmentally friendly water-supply infrastructure projects.

Less government spending, not more, was the red meat this crowd hungered for.

Here's what we learned about this year's tea party supporters from the recent New York Times/CBS News Poll:

-- 58 percent think our best years are behind us when it comes to good jobs.

-- 75 percent are over 45, including 29 percent seniors.

-- 89 percent are white.

-- 59 percent are men.

-- While 84 percent of tea party supporters believe their views represent most Americans, only 25 percent of Americans think they do.

Only time will tell, but I'd say a collection of cranky old white guys vowing to bring back the good old days is unlikely to have much of a political future in this country.