heard, your vote doesn’t count, and the Tea Party is just a flash in the pan. They are counting on you to not get involved, not to contribute, not help with phone banks, not take people to the polls and not vote.  

 We cannot let this happen.  Not to us; not to those we have influence with, and especially not to our nation, our children and our grandchildren. Never in our lifetime has there been such a unified uprising of average, everyday citizens across the political spectrum with one goal in mind – to take our country BACK, 

 The thing the liberals (including RINO’s) fear most is an informed electorate.  And you are just that. There is NOBODY better informed or more motivated than the folks in the Tea Party!  You guys do your homework, you roll your sleeves up and you are getting it done, here in Sevier County and all across the country.  

 For a leaderless group of ordinary Americans, we have had more influence and more impact across the nation in a mere 18 months than practically any other group or third party out there has ever had.  Who thought Scott Brown would win in Massachusetts of all places, or that Chris Christie (Christie 2012!) would win in a deep blue state like New Jersey; or that Joe Miller would beat Lisa Murkowski in Alaska? Or how about Sharron Angle in Nevada, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Marco Rubio in Florida, Nikki Haley in South Carolina, Mike Lee in Utah, etc. etc.    

 The political left, and the elites in the GOP as well, dismiss and marginalize the Tea Party at their own peril.  We the People have had enough.  The silent majority has been awakened and we will vote, we will elect conservative, constitutionally minded, fiscally responsible candidates all across the country. And we will hold them accountable from the minute they take office, nationally, statewide and locally. 

 AND WE WILL DO IT AGAIN IN 2012

 Momentum and history are on our side.  The Founders are on our side.  The Nation itself hangs in the balance – whether we aspire to be that Shining City on a Hill as Ronald Reagan so eloquently spoke of, that beacon of freedom, opportunity and hope for the entire world, or we continue to slide into socialism - or worse - as this current government takes over more and more of our lives, our money and our freedom, spending and regulating us into a hole we will never get out of.

 It has been said that it took a Jimmy Carter to get a Ronald Reagan.  So too, it has taken a Barack Obama and his fellow travelers in a rubber stamp, socialist congress to produce one of the most powerful movements of We the People since the American Revolution - the Tea Party. 

 …and make no mistake about it - we are unified, we are strong, and we are not going away! 

 As the media piles on, as you are insulted and ridiculed for your belief in such quaint notions as Constitutionally limited governance, fiscal responsibility, having faith in God, believing in the values and institutions that have made America great, in short – American Exceptionalism, just smile and know everything they say and do just lights the fire a little hotter and we become more motivated and more involved. … and that we will prevail.  

 Come January 2011, there will be no more Speaker Pelosi, no more Majority Leader Reid and, most importantly, no more will we have an unrestrained socialistic president thinking he can fundamentally transform America into something the Founding Fathers and the Constitution never intended. 

 We The People are taking this country back and there is nothing they can do about it.  We are the only ones that can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  We must stay united, stay committed, stay involved, and most of all, we must defeat them.

 In closing, please take to heart this excerpt from Winston Churchill’s famous “Never Give Up” speech, delivered about 10 months after WWII began, to the student body of Harrow School, his childhood alma mater. It speaks across time and distance to us in our very situation today  –

 …. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period…surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson:

 Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

Winston Churchill, October 29, 1941

 Yours in Liberty,

Tom Waser

Charter Member, Sevier County Tea Party Steering Committee