Notwithstanding that some news organizations have detected a decrease in Tea Party momentum and are predicting the conservative movement’s decline into obscurity once the economy upturns, Karen Cage believes she and others in the Lakeside group can make a difference in the 2012 presidential election.
“You have to have fire in your belly and get up off your butt,” she says with classic can-do Texan resolve.
In the expat political stakes, the now dormant Republicans Abroad provided a lackluster challenge to the well-organized Democrats in 2008 but Cage says the Lakeside Tea Party is firing on all cylinders and has attracted plenty of interest in the area over the past two years.
“We recently sent out a survey asking members their affiliation before they joined the Tea Party. We got Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians. We also asked why they wanted to join. It was overwhelming: The government isn’t listening to us. We are spending more than we have. We are dismantling the American way of life,” says Cage, president of the group.
Like a text book Tea Partier, Cage rattles off the movement’s core beliefs and values with the ease and conviction of seasoned political activist (which she unquestionably is): balanced budgets, no deficit spending, downsized government, business deregulation, tax reduction, constitutional self governance, a nation based on Christian principles, and so on.
Some on the other side of the political spectrum would be quick to mark down Cage as a big “C” conservative participating in a movement awash with noisy far-right extremists, birthers, racists and bigots. Elements in her background, however, eschew such contentious typecasting.
She admired JFK and Democratic Texas Governor Ann Richards (although she didn’t vote for her) and calls Martin Luther King “a principled man who stood up and died for what he believed.”
Attending Texas Women’s University, Cage says she was taught “to think for herself,” which no doubt she did because her parents were both Democrats. With a major in radio and television and a minor in journalism, she has worked for various media companies, including CBS, ABC and Fox, and was active in women’s rights issues and organizations. Once, early in her career, she was able to persuade her bosses to relax the rule on women wearing pants in the office – a major accomplishment in Texas in the late 1960s.
And Cage is honest enough to describe her younger self as a “brat,” who never had job in college, whose father – an Army doctor – paid for all of her studies, as well as a car and an apartment when she graduated. Luckily, the light eventually dawned: “I realized this isn’t fair, why should he be doing this.”
This might be a clue as to why the subject of individual responsibility permeates much of Cage’s rhetoric.
“We are taking away initiative from people. It’s easier to sit back and let the government pay you. Why go out and start a new business. Why save for college when I can get a Pell Grant that I don’t have to worry about paying back.
“America has gone from a country of excellence and entrepreneurs to a country of mediocre people who say why work, let the government do it for me.”
Eliminating pork barrel spending, raising the retirement age to 70, freezing social security for ten years, repealing health care reform are some of the measures Cage believes would help get the United States back on its feet.
The first task, she says, is removing President Barack Obama from office.
“When he was elected, I thought maybe it’s good thing to have an African American in the White House. But the fact is that he has absolutely no experience. He’s never done anything than be a community organizer or run for president. He’s never run a company or even a girl scout cookie sale. He’s never had to sit down and say, look our profits are down, I have to make the payroll, I’m going to have to lay two people off.
“I think we are bankrupting the next generation. I want someone in the White House who understands about money, investment and planning for the future.
“No CEO in America would be in his job if they turned in the kind of performance Obama has.”
Cage says exiling Obama from the Oval Office takes precedent over whether the Republican Party’s choice of a candidate is an exemplar Tea Party representative or not.
“I want someone who is electable. John McCain was a wonderful war hero but not a good presidential candidate.
“We need an articulate candidate who is a great communicator, like Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton.”
Cage says she has voted for Texas Governor Rick Perry on “ten occasions” in different elections, and worked “long and hard” for him but is reluctant to say if she considers him the cream of the Republicans’ current presidential crop.
An Obama-Romney face-off next year would not be every Tea Partier’s dream contest but Cage says the Lakeside Tea Party will give the Republican candidate its full support.
“The Tea Party is not going to get everything they want in a candidate. We’re looking for someone who will cut the size of government, cut taxes and relax restrictions on business. And when in office, if he doesn’t listen to us – we the people – will neuter him.”
Scornful of the stimulus package and the jobs bill (stimulus two, she calls it), Cage has a simplistic view of how to get America working again.
“Get government out of the way and let capitalism do what it does best – create jobs. Right now there are so many regulations putting a stranglehold on small businesses. Before he died Steve Jobs told Obama he was killing small businesses. Can you imagine Jobs in Wozniak’s garage putting together Apple into today’s business climate.
“My husband started a business at age 27 and ran it for 30 years. It was the third largest advertising arts company in Texas for many years and he achieved it without government money. The first three years were really tough and some months he took money from my income so he could pay his people and didn’t pay himself. He didn’t stand in line for a bail out.”
Hard-hearted maybe, but there’s a softer side to Cage. She’s served on the North Texas Food Bank, worked on behalf of battered and abused women and on programs to help women prepare themselves for job interviews.
“We need to give people a hand up not a hand out,” she says. “Government should provide for people who cannot provide for themselves, that’s part of being a Christian nation. But to give people something for nothing is another matter. The Bible says give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and he can sustain himself. We cannot have four or five generations of families living on welfare.”
Tea Partiers’ interpretation of socialism would not pass any litmus tests in educated European circles, but Cage is convinced that’s the road Obama is leading the nation down.
Like most conservatives, Cage says forcing people to purchase health insurance is not the role of the government. “We are going to take American health care and make it reflective of a third world country,” she says, adding that fortunately all the Republican presidential candidates are committed to repealing “Obama-care.”
Cage says the Lakeside Tea Party will start to rack up its activism in the coming months. They’ve already launched a new website that has a blog, as well as links to other conservative and liberal (“to see what the competition is doing”) sites. They will soon undertake a straw poll of the candidates and continue to program “substance driven” meetings, that in recent months have covered topics such as the rise of Islam in America and illegal immigration. A future meeting will discuss the role of the kingmakers, those who direct political campaigns.
Like the Democrats have done for many years, Cage says the Lakeside Tea Party will also promote voter registration.
“If you do not vote, you do not have the right to protest,” she says. “I would never miss a vote. People die in other countries for the right to vote.”
For someone who for much of her life has written regularly to the president, her senators and congressional representative to express her opinions, Cage could not keep politics out of her life after moving to lakeside two and a half years ago. Her views may not coincide with those of many long-timers living in the area but she says she’s ready to face any criticism and will stand up for her beliefs.
“Four people sitting around having coffee and railing against the world can’t change anything,” she says. “If you care about leaving a better world for your grandkids, then you need to participate. When I’m no longer interested, then I’m ready to go into the box.”