New Lenox and Beyond! Tea Party Express Builds Major Momentum!

Here's an update to my earlier report, "Massive Turnout for New Lenox/Joliet Tea Party."

It turns out that Chicago's local media provided very favorable coverage of the event. See, NBC Chicago, "Tea Party Rally Draws Huge Crowd," and especially, WLS-TV Chicago, "Protest Bus Stops in New Lenox":

Here's another local post, "Tea Party Today in New Lenox, IL HUGE TURNOUT!'

And, in the mail from Tea Party Express:

Joe The Plumber (Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) has confirmed with organizers of the Tea Party Express that he will speak at Tuesday's Tea Party Express rally in Brighton, Michigan.

Also, from CNN, "Tea Party Express Takes Aim at Lawmakers":

Organizers of the Tea Party Express bus tour arriving in Washington later this week planned their route to go though Democratic congressional districts they consider vulnerable.

"What we did was take a map of the United States and then we went head and pin pointed the members of congress that merited our attention and then we looked at those that might be politically vulnerable," said Joe Wierzbicki, a strategist with the conservative PAC Our Country Deserves Better, who are organizing the cross country Tea Party Express tour.

Topping the group's target list in the Senate is current Democrat, and former moderate Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The Tea Party Express makes four stops in Pennsylvania later this week.

"Arlen Specter has always been a top priority for us, because as long as you had a prominent Republican who was providing the Democrats the means to push through this massive expansion of government, that certainly made him a top priority," says Wierzbicki.

Other Democratic senators on the groups list include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Connecticut's Chris Dodd. The tour made five stops in Nevada, and plans three stops in Connecticut.

On the House side, first-term Michigan Democrats Mark Schauer and Gary Peters are on the group's target list. The tour plans four Michigan stops.

"We decided to do this tour across the country, mobilize the people in these communities, so that subsequent to this tour we can then go back and start prioritizing these targets for the express purpose of running ads and grassroots campaigns to defeat these members of Congress," said Wierzbicki.

The Our Country Deserves Better PAC says the Tea Party Express is not a partisan group.

And, Donald Lambro, "Tea Party Express Roars to D.C."

When the "tea party" movement kicked off in April to protest record federal spending bills, trillion-dollar deficits and higher tax burdens, its members were fiercely independent and opposed any suggestion that they bond with a larger umbrella group, preferring to work within their local communities.

But that go-it-alone approach is changing as a result of the war over health care, and the Tea Party Express tour is leading the way.

The Tea Party Express - a caravan of buses, speakers and entertainers who have been holding protest rallies in cities and towns across the country - is heading to Washington, where on Saturday, up to 50,000 demonstrators are expected to march on the Capitol in a full-scale political offensive to persuade lawmakers to reject the health care overhaul bills that are pending in the House and Senate.

"What we are seeing across the country is not only increasingly larger crowds but a greater determination to hold members of Congress to their opposition to the health care plan. They are angry and feel they've been ignored, and they don't like what Congress has done," Joe Wierzbicki, national coordinator of the Tea Party Express, said in a telephone interview as his 45-foot bus cruised through Texas last week on a 17-day, 34-rally tour that will end in Washington on Saturday.

A large force of conservative and libertarian organizations is helping sponsor the event, including Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet, the National Taxpayers Union, Young Americans for Liberty, the Ayn Rand Center, Heartland Institute, Free Republic, Institute for Liberty, the Tea Party Express, FreedomWorks officials said. FreedomWorks, headquartered in Washington and chaired by former Rep. Dick Armey mobilizes volunteers for conservative causes.

"The politicians in Washington who think this movement is 'astroturf' had better think again. This is the grass roots coming alive," said Dennis E. Whitfield, executive vice president of the American Conservative Union. "This is beginning to take root across the country. This is for real."

Finally, don't miss Robert Stacy McCain's post, "Are You Ready to (Tea) Party?"

As noted, I'll be at "912West: A Tea Party For The West Coast."

Boy, this is going to be big!

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UPDATE! More from Atlas Shrugs, "The American Insurgency: Tens of Thousands Protest Obama Across America - Tea Parties." And The Rhetorican, "Obamacare: Plan B."