Tea Party Express Opens to a Crowd of Several Hundred at Ohio Stop

Perhaps it was 95-degree weather or being smack in the middle of a holiday weekend, but the Tea Party Express, in its only Ohio stop, drew just a few hundred people to its “pre-game” event, despite predictions by local politicos that the event would draw up to 5,000.

Speakers featured “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, Mrs. Ohio and Claver Kamau-Imani, a conservative black Republican who spearheads Raging Elephants.

The three were part of a group that spoke to a docile audience that preceded the 5 p.m. arrival of the Tea Party Express. No protestors arrived to protest the event at All Pro Frieght Stadium. Speakers earned polite applause.

Joe the Plumber, who gained notoriety during the 2008 presidential election after he was videotaped questioning then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama about his small business tax policy during a campaign stop in Ohio, said he was “still a regular guy” and urged people to vote for people who “will actually do something.”

Wurzelbacher told Patch he didn’t consider himself a Tea Party member but supported “the basic principle of right and wrong.”

“I support unity as opposed to conformity,” he said. “I have plenty of Democrat and Republican friends.”

Tom Zawistoski, president of the Ohio Liberty Council, rallied the crowd by mocking those who mock the Tea Party members.

“Hello homophobes, Nazis, racists, terrorists … did I leave anyone out?” Zawistoski said.

Zawistoski told the audence that government needs to heed the Tea Party’s message.

“Stop the borrowing, stop the spending,” Zawistoski said. “Stop the growth of government. That’s the message we’re sending out.”

Kamau-Imani flew in from Texas for the Avon event. He said he was not a Tea Party member, but a conservative who is “slightly left of” Libertarian.

He urged more racial diversity among conservatives.

Kamau-Imani who read passages from the Bible, elicited the greatest response from the crowd, drawing cheers. 

“We not supposed to be tolerant of moral behavior," Kamau-Imani said to a cheering crowd. "You cannot surrender, you cannot compromise … We stand for compromise. Make a decision. Do you want to keep your republic or do you want to surrender?”