Tea partiers in the Albany, NY, area used to be able to turn out a crowd, for their Tax Day rallies and for town halls during their Summer of Rage in 2009.
This year, they canned the Tax Day rally, and their turnout at town halls for solid Democrat Paul Tonko can be counted on two hands.
What a difference two years makes. Almost exactly two years after a boisterous town hall, where about half of the crowd of 600 or so were tea partiers, Tonko held a town hall in an Albany firehouse Monday night that featured no stupid signs (like the one at right from 2009) and just a handful of tea partiers.
About 200 people attended the town hall, and they loudly applauded Tonko's talk about investments in jobs, a balanced approach to deficit reduction, the importance of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Citizens United, and the way the tea party minority of the House majority seems to be running the country.
Details, below.
First, another tea party FAIL.
Among more than 20 questions, only two came from tea partiers (one of whom was not a constituent).
And, one right after the other, they asked the same question -- something about how the Democrats had not passed a budget when they were in charge.
A standard Fox "News"/wingnut radio talking point. Tonko parried it easily by saying, twice, that there were political difficulties in getting a budget through the House and the Senate, and that the continuing resolutions took care of business.
One of the questioners called a local Republican radio show Tuesday to complain that Tonko didn't answer his question and that MoveOn has stacked the crowd.
Typical tea party whining -- they just don't get that they are a micro-minority around here, and most everywhere else outside the Confederacy. And that Tonko is a popular representative of his district.
The 100-minute event was overwhelmingly civil, no shouts or boos, unlike two years ago.
It seems that the tea partiers need some critical mass of attendees (at least a third) before they'll be brave enough to act out the way they did in 2009.
Looking ahead, potential Tonko challenger Deb Busch was there, way overdressed in a blue pantsuit on a hot, humid evening, but she didn't try to ask a question.
Busch was a tea party fave last year when she ran for an Assembly seat, and got creamed. Hopefully, she'll fail upwards next year.