Zak Stone Photo
No crumpets were served at a City Hall “Tea Party.” Instead, Republican candidates for Senate and Congress helped a crowd dish out a generous dose of anti-government, anti-Obama sentiments and campaign promises — while clashing with a gate-crasher.
About 60 demonstrators gathered outside City Hall Saturday morning to protest health care reform legislation at a “STOP ObamaCare Rally,” an event organized by the local chapter of a national movement pushing Republican candidates to the Glenn Beck right fringes of their party.
The rally in moderate Connecticut offered a test for how far right the state’s Republicans are willing to go as they court the conservative base in anticipation of a slew of competitive elections in 2010.
Rally organizers invited all the Republican U.S. Senate candidates to the New Haven rally, for instance. The two leading candidates, Linda McMahon and Rob Simmons, ended up not showing.
Two other candidates did show: Senate hopeful Peter Schiff and Penny Rogers, who’s running for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. (They’re pictured above.)
Rogers and Schiff hedged on the Tea Party movement’s claims about the health care bill containing government “death panels.” But they offered other crowd-pleasers from the right, including calls to drill for more oil and to abolish the Department of Energy.
The Tea Partiers, known nationally for obstreperous crashing of Democratic politicians’ events, had a gate-crasher of their own Saturday. One member of the Schiff team wasn’t amused.
In remarks to the crowd, Schiff complained that government intervention in health care would produce even more inefficiencies. He suggested that the government open its borders to competition from foreign insurers in countries like Japan and Switzerland, which could drive costs down.
His remark about outsourcing sparked indignant remarks from the gate-crasher.
“You are betting on China!” yelled New Haven resident and liberal political blogger Edward Anderson, drawing the audience’s attention away from Schiff’s speech. “At the minimum you should be a patriot to run.”
Anderson said Schiff’s company ought to invest its funds in the U.S. rather than overseas.
Angered Schiff supporters responded with their own replies. “He can put his money where he wants!” yelled one woman, while someone else demanded, “What union is paying your health care?”
Schiff’s fiancé Martha O’brien approached Anderson. “Who’s paying you to be here?” she demanded.
Edward Anderson (left) squares off against Schiff supporters, including Martha O’Brien (right).
Schiff reacted to Anderson’s remarks as well, telling the audience that our government’s restrictions on business have made it so “there’s more Capitalism in Communist China that in America.”
“Coffin Care”
Activists at the rally carried placards and flags declaring “Don’t Tread on Me” and “ObamaCare is making us Sick.” Wayne Killburn of South Windsor erected awhite coffin on the steps of City Hall. The words “Seniors, Obama Care Wants You!” were painted on the interior of the lid. Kilburn — who carried a sign with the words “Caskets for Clunkers” — called his monument “Coffin Care to Die For,” It references the “death panels” for the elderly allegedly underwritten into Obama’s healthcare plan, according to some conservatives; the existence of such panels in the legislation has otherwise been widely debunked.
“We will not rest, we will not falter, we will not tire, and we will not fail” to combat Obama’s health reform,“Tea Party State coordinator Tanya Bachand declared to the crowd. Waving a copy of the Constitution in the air, she told the crowd that Obama “will have to tear it from my cold, dead hands.”
Rogers, who lives in Milford and owns an auto body shop, must beat Jerry Labriola Jr., treasurer of the Republican State Central Committee, in a party primary before getting the chance to take on DeLauro in November. DeLauro has held the seat for 20 years. Labriola was not spotted at Saturday’s rally.
Schiff, a libertarian who’s seeking the seat being relinquished by Democrat Chris Dodd, runs Euro Pacific Capital, an investment firm in Westport and is the author of two books, including Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse. The Senate race was shaken up by Democrat Chris Dodd’s recent decision to retire.
In remarks to the crowd, Rogers and Schiff both blamed government regulation for the health care crisis and offered private, market-based solutions. Rogers condemned Congress’s health care reform bill as “ridiculous” and overly-complicated. “We need legislation that’s simplified… Nobody knows what’s in” the more than 2,000-page bill.
Schiff cited his status as a political newcomer as a strength. He complained that Americans keep sending career politicians to Washington, who “check their principals at the door.” Schiff maintained that he is going to Washington simply to fix the country, leaving career aspirations behind.
The conversation focused on health care reform, but touched on other hot-button issues like illegal immigration and climate change. When questioned about energy policy, Schiff and Rogers tried to outdo each other with increasingly bolder statements about deregulating energy production. Schiff said he supports drilling in Alaska. Rogers added, “I’ll go further than drilling. I think we ought to reignite nuclear power plants.”
Schiff upped the ante by saying that the country ought to repeal the Department of Energy altogether and leave it to the private sector. Schiff’s company has invested millions in new drilling projects in North Dakota.
Tea Partiers and conservative figures like Sarah Palin have warned of “death panels” hidden in Obama’s health reform plan that supposedly would ration health care by deciding which old people live and die based on cost effectiveness. The candidates distanced themselves from that notion, without denying it outright.
Schiff said that “rationing happens in every country” with socialized medicine. Richer people get around it by seeking treatment abroad, he said.
Rogers said that while the term “death panels” sounds a bit extreme, a “socialized” system will lead to “tough end of life decisions.” Inevitably, questions like “Do we really want to spend money to put a hip in this 87-year-old woman?” will have to be asked under Obama’s plan, Rogers argued.
It is still unclear whether local Tea Party activists will throw their support behind the two candidates. Killburn, whose hometown lies outside of Rogers’s district, said that he has not decided if he will support Schiff, who “knows money” well but is a “one-horse candidate.”
Bachand said that personally she prefers Schiff for Senate but cannot make an official endorsement on behalf of Connecticut’s Tea Party so soon in the game.
