Article from Florida Today, dated July 12, 2009:

Matt Nye steps into spotlight, changes game
Tired of sideline, he mobilizes conservatives by the masses

Matt Nye wanted nothing to do with politics until just a couple of years ago.

His father told him early on that “voting only encourages them.” He complained a lot about government, but never tried to change anything.

So it’s a major change for the 37-year-old Internet-telephone salesman and former mortgage broker to now be immersed in politics. He’s the lead organizer of the Brevard County “tea parties,” the latest of which attracted some 3,000 people to Space Coast Stadium on July 4.

Nye serves on the Brevard Republican Executive Committee and is chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Central East Florida, which represents the Libertarian wing of the party. County commissioners recently appointed Nye to influential government boards, where he can shape government and business in Brevard from the inside out.

And then there’s his role as modern-day pamphleteer. Besides a tea party Web site, Nye maintains the Space Coast Politics blog, where he quotes Libertarian author Ayn Rand and rails against the “liberal media” and big government spending. Another Nye site is dedicated to attacking County Attorney Scott Knox.

“I am not your typical volunteer organizer,” Nye said in a recent interview, twisting a silver ring with a Superman “S” logo. “I don’t play well in groups.”

All of that points to a more ambitious effort, Nye said — one that could force some soul-searching among local Republicans.

He said he plans to run for the Brevard County Commission in 2010, the seat currently held by fellow Republican Mary Bolin.

He’s tired of being “on the outside yelling for change,” Nye said.
Overcoming failure

Within months, Nye has gone from outsider to insider partly because of the election of conservative commissioners in South Brevard. Commissioner Trudie Infantini appointed him to the Charter Review Commission, charged with proposing changes to the fundamental operations and ground rules of county government. And Commissioner Andy Anderson named Nye to the board of directors of the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, the agency entrusted to recruiting industry.

But the man who preaches fiscal responsibility as he rails against wasteful government spending has suffered his share of financial disasters, including bankruptcy, foreclosure and a federal tax lien.

Read more.

The new Alabama affiliate of the Republican Liberty Caucus is off and running!

Members of the Alabama Republican Liberty Caucus assisted with the coordination of three Tax Day Tea Parties held in Alabama. RLC Alabama Secretary Shana Kluck and RLC Alabama Media Coordinator Steve Gordon helped secure speakers, provide professional advice, and assisted with other logistical concerns for the Tuscaloosa and Birmingham Tea Parties, respectively. Additionally, RLC supporter Matthew Givens was a coordinator for the Montgomery event while Alabama RLC Chair Scott Boykin was involved in the Shelby County Tea Party logistical efforts.

While crowd estimates vary, approximately ten thousand people attended these three events, with the Birmingham Tea Party receiving national television attention on Fox News.

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Last week, Steve Gordon was on the Rachel Maddow show discussing the Tea Party movement (see above video) and the rift between Big Government Republicans and liberty-minded Republicans. Gordon caught Maddow off-guard and clearly explained that the liberty movement has been working for many years to change the direction of Washington.

According to HotAir.com’s Green Room, Gordon took “hard shots at Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Alan Keyes” which “should suffice to dispel any notion that the Tea Party movement is a ‘neocon/Republican/Fox News’ conspiracy.”  As Maddow explained, Sean Hannity was not welcome at the Atlanta Tea Party — at least not if we had our way!

On Thursday, Alabama RLC Media Coordinator Steve Gordon spent an hour as an in-studio guest along with national political journalist Robert Stacy McCain on WYDE’s Lee Davis Show. Discussing the topic of recent Alabama Tea Parties, McCain stressed a point which Gordon had made to him during Ron Paul’s recent presidential bid: “The Ron Paul movement wasn’t about Ron Paul. It was about a movement.”

It looks like anyone remotely near Alabama needs to join these folks today. They mean business!

RLC member Phil Pepin of San Antonio, Texas was a guest speaker at the San Antonio Tea Party rally last Wednesday. Mr. Pepin added graphics and pictures of the incredible crowd at the San Antonio Tea Party to his speech, “The War On Economic Freedom.” His speech covers the damage caused by government regulation, corporatism, and the Federal Reserve.

I have compiled a photo summary of pictures that include RLC members or that were taken by RLC members at their local Tea Party events yesterday. Enjoy!

With tea parties going on nationwide I thought I’d better get down to Austin and make sure I didn’t miss out on our local protest. I went incognito, dressed informally and hiding behind a very large camera to get a feel for the mood, mix with the crowd and see how powerful the grassroots movement really was. I’d heard all the claims from the left and the media — that it was just an attempt by Republicans to try to gain some attention and that there would be just a few kooks protesting in a handful of cities.

What I found in Austin and what I learned during the day was much more impressive than I had been lead to expect. First off, the crowd in Austin was surprisingly large. I attended the first (and likely smaller) of two tax-day events, and it had 1500 people jammed onto the very small area of the steps and plaza infront of the Austin City Hall. Subsequently I learned that rather than a handful of other protests nationwide, the Austin protest was just one of close to 2000, and despite how impressed I was with our local turnout, it was small by national standards, with some other cities turning people out in the tens of thousands and a total estimated nationwide attendance likely to be in the millions by the end of the day.

It was also quite apparent that despite substantial Republican involvement, this was conceived as a non-partisan event. The idea originated with Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC and was picked up by all sorts of groups, and they were prominent at the Austin Tea Party.

Ron Paul’s non-partisan Campaign for Liberty was there, along with the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party and local issue groups whose interests cross party lines. Plus Americans for Prosperity was a major presence, and they’re a strictly non-partisan group with funding from the Koch family who are known for libertarian but strictly non-Republican political activism. The speakers included a lot of Republicans, lead by Governor Rick Perry and Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, but also including representatives of various activist groups including several speakers from the Libertarian Party and Mike Voorhees from the Travis County chapter of the Republican Liberty Caucus. So while the local Republicans had joined in and assumed a large role, the overall character was not partisan.

Obviously there were common interests being expressed, most obviously a strong objection to tax increases, erosion of constitutional rights and out of control government spending. Unfortunately, what seemed to be happening both in the speeches and in the media coverage was the dumbing down of the message to a single element.

While the focus of the grassroots anger really seems to be on excessive government spending and the growth of government intrusion in the lives of citizens, too many of those speaking and too much of the coverage boiled it down to an anti-tax message. That’s largely the result of holding these events on April 15th, but it gave President Obama the opportunity to address the protests dismissively by dragging out his dubious promises about a tax cut for the middle class and no new taxes for 95% of the population. It’s an unfortunate outcome of taking a movement like this to a broad audience that the message gets diluted and misdirected, in this case with the result that most observers and many of those involved will only get the superficial anti-tax message and miss the stronger and much more fundamental message that out of control spending and fiscal mismanagement area much bigger threat than mere tax increases.

You can get some idea of the character of the protest from my photos of the posters and the crowd. The signs were mostly hand-made and some of the messages were surprisingly sophisticated. I was pleased to see one which read “inflation is hidden taxation,” demonstrating an understanding of the economy which seems to be lost on or ignored by our political leaders. Although I hear there were problems in other parts of the country, the Austin Tea Party was unmarred by MoveOn agitators, “citizen journalists” from HuffPo and Union stooges, though they may just have been keeping a low profile in a relatively inhospitable environment.

One of the things which surprised me was the relative youth of the protesters. Several college Republicans spoke, and the activists from groups like the Campaign for Liberty and the Republican Liberty Caucus also seemed to be mostly in their 20s. The crowd also seemed surprisingly normal. Sure, there was one FLDS family dressed in creepy from head to toe, and a guy dressed as Uncle Sam and another dressed as Jesus, but most of the people there looked like tech workers on their lunch break or college students or other typical Austinites.

I fit right in with my t-shirt and shorts and excess of digital hardware. One interesting thing I noticed was that despite our proximity to Lake Lady Bird, there seemed not to be an actual or even symbolic tea bag in sight. They may have been saving them for the evening rally, or perhaps the scoffing about “teabagging” from Rachel Maddow and the Huffington Post had prompted people to tone down those references.

As I hammer out this story on the trusty old Powerbook, the Tea Parties are still going on around the nation, and the news media is finding themselves forced to report on them with little else to cover on a slow news day. They’re trying to squeeze in as much as they can about Obama’s hollow promises of tax simplification and tax cuts for the middle class he has already destroyed, but footage of an empty shirt at a lonely podium really doesn’t play well against crowds of angry Americans who are demanding real change and responsibility from their government.

From the RLC’s latest press release:

On April 15th, Republican Liberty Caucus members will join with other grassroots activists across the nation to participate in Tax Day Tea Party protests to express frustration with the growth of government under the Bush and Obama Administrations. The RLC National Board is encouraging taxpayers to support the April 15 event in their communities.

On February 27, an estimated 30,000 Americans took to the street in over 40 US cities in the first nationwide “Tea Party” protest. Over 500 cities and hundreds of thousands of taxpayers are expected to participate in the April 15 Tax Day Tea Party demonstrations. To view a listing of Tea Parties in your area, visit http://taxdayteaparty.com.

At the Tea Parties, concerned citizens, grassroots organizations, and free-market activists will band together to have their voices heard. “Our hope is that the politicians will notice when a large group of taxpayers converge to express dissent,” said RLC Chairman Dave Nalle.

“Individuals and families are angry about this economy—and it has everything to do with the tremendous growth of government combined with deficit-spending, tax hikes, and unsustainable central economic planning carried out by the political ruling class,” said Nalle. “RLC members from across the country will use April 15 as a day to protest the federal income tax, government Bailouts, unsound monetary policy, and the insurmountable national debt.”

The Republican Liberty Caucus, founded in 1991, is a political 527 organization dedicated to restoring the principles of individual liberty, limited government and free markets to government via the Republican Party. To learn more about the RLC or to join, visit http://www.RLC.org/.

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All across the country on Tax Day, Republican Liberty Caucus members will be attending Tea Party Rallies to express dissent to Members of Congress and local officials and encourage sensible economic reforms that will enhance America’s struggling economy.

To see a listing of the Tea Parties in your state, click here. On February 27th, an estimated 30,000 Americans took to the street in 40+ cities across the country in the first nationwide “Tea Party” protest.

So why rally? What is the point? Several reasons: 1) There has not been ENOUGH dissent in this country and the “go along, get along” attitude has plagued us for many years; 2) folks are FINALLY starting to wake up, and public rallies engage average citizens in issues; 3) public officials pay attention to large groups of taxpayers; 4) it provides a coalition-building opportunity with like-minded groups; and 5) it allows the RLC to gain visibility.

The Tea Party movement has been organized to protest the Bailouts approved by Congress, the massive federal debt that continues to grow daily, and the increasing burden on average taxpayers. There is no better day to express your distrust of government than April 15 — Tax Day.

In conjunction with the Spirit of the Founders, RLC members are organizing and speaking at Taxpayer Tea Parties throughout the country. For example, in Melbourne, Florida, RLC East Central Florida Coordinator Matthew D. Nye has organized the Brevard Tea Party.

At its website, Nye features a video from a savvy young lady who discusses the relevance of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged to the current state of the economy. She says:

“The similarities [in Atlas Shrugged compared to] today are striking. In Atlas, we see a world crumbling under the weight of government interventions and regulations. The economy is ground to a halt. Each day, more and more businesses are shutting their doors. The government blames greed and the free market and frantically imposes more government control, but the crisis only deepens. Sound familiar?”

Atlas is currently the Amazon.com “Best Seller” in the fiction category, but it’s RLC member Nye who is educating taxpayers in Brevard County, Florida.

According to the newly chartered Republican Liberty Caucus of Alabama, “Quite a few RLC members are active in the planning of Tea Party rallies to be held across Alabama (and the nation) on April 15th.”  Similarly, RLC Tennessee Officers Gregg Juster, Bryan Haddock, and Joe Dumas are assisting with the Tea Party organizing in Chattanooga.

In Arizona, RLC member Tom Jenney will be a featured speaker, along with RLC State Representative Frank Antenori, at the Tucson Tea Party. Members of the RLC of Pima County, including organize Ken Rineer, are active participants in the Tucson Tea Party.

In northern Virginia, RLC Secretary Aaron Biterman will be addressing the crowd at the Tea Party in Reston, an outer-Beltway suburb of the nation’s capital. Biterman will be speaking about continuing the “Spirit of the Revolution” in 2009 and the importance of eliminating the federal income tax.

These are just some of the RLC members and activists who have taken an active role in the Tea Party Movement.  Look for a full report post-April 15.

In addition to attending your local Tea Party, the RLC is encouraging its members to take the following five steps to promote local Tea Parties:

• Make signs with legible slogans that send a clear message to the public and the media;
• Call local talk radio hosts to ask them to announce the location, date, and time of your local Tea Party on the air for a few days leading up to the protest;
• Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper announcing the rally;
• Write a press release and e-mail, mail and fax copies to the local TV stations, radio stations and newspapers; and
• Call the reporters that cover local events or politics and leave messages on their voice mail.