Oh, That Racist Tea Party! The Haters, Hillbillies and Histrionic Doomsayers of Westchester

Unruly, epithet-hurling hillbillies. Paranoid, xenophobic racists. Sarah Palin-worshipping, NASCAR-watching ignorants.

Teabaggers.

Bloggers and journalists don't suffer from a lack of choice words when describing the Tea Party. But for all the stereotypes and ad hominem attacks, one thing was pretty clear last week as I joined more than 100 Tea Party activists in Westchester -- these are some really nice folks.

While talking heads like Keith Olbermann conjure up images of camouflaged militants plotting the demise of the government over beef jerky, members of the White Plains Tea Party took a stab at solving the country's problems over glasses of zinfandel at Elmsford's Alaroma Restaurant.

With the Tea Party's leaders embroiled in a contest of accusational one-upsmanship -- including a much-publicized spat with the NAACP -- local conservative activists say they don't want the ongoing media drama to obscure their original reasons for protesting.

"The last act of a desperate liberal is to cry racism," said Port Chester native Chris Cassone. "The Tea party is everyday people who'd rather be living their lives, but can't because their economic prosperity has been stolen. The Tea party is as grass-roots as they get."

Cassone's a familiar face on the Tea Party circuit. The 59-year-old audio engineer penned a song called "Take Our Country Back," and since last year he's lugged his acoustic guitar to Tea Party rallies across the country.

Deneen Borelli is tired of the racism talk. The Westchester resident has been called a "House Negress," an Uncle Tom and an Oreo, and she's been accused of having her head shots Photoshopped to lighten her skin tone. Those are tame examples -- we can't even print the others.

"The Tea party is about policies, not about race," Borelli said. "It's about limited government, it's about the constitution."

Indeed, many wonder how talk of fiscal responsibility, taxes and libertarian ideals equate to racism in the minds of media commentators.

Ironically, the racism accusations are colorblind -- white, black, Hispanic or Asian, Tea Party activists all suffer the same smear. White Tea Partiers are plain old racists; black members are "treasonous" racists; and Hispanic activists are merely "tokens."

Karl Kehrle said he's seen this sort of hysteria and frenzied finger-pointing before -- in Nazi Germany. In 1945, Kehrle watched as 15-year-old boys in his hometown were hauled off as conscripts, and he remembers a neighbor who was silenced for criticizing the Nazi regime.

The German-turned-American said the political climate -- and the smear cloud hanging over the heads of activists -- has him worried.

"I know socialism when I see it," he said.

People at the Westchester gathering admitted some in the national Tea Party movement have poured fuel on the fire, and some prominent members have done more damage to their cause than any ideological opponent could have hoped to do.

Mark Williams, the former Tea Party Express leader who resigned last week, had already been chastised months ago when he said Muslims "worship a monkey god."

But Williams remained a central figure, and activists found themselves on the defensive again when the wannabe conservative radio host posted a blog entry that was widely criticized as racist. Organizers should have seen it coming -- Williams has a history of inane comments, and it was only a matter of time before his mini-controversies ballooned into giant ones.

Even without an organizational hierarchy, the movement needs to purge its less-savory figures, Westchester's conservatives said.

"His comments weren't funny and didn't help the movement," said Ariana Collazzi, who was among the activists gathered in Elmsford on Friday.

Although the Tea Party doesn't endorse candidates -- and supporters are quick to point out the movement isn't a facsimile of the Republican party -- local political hopefuls saw last week's gathering as a chance to connect with like-minded folks.

With the economy still sputtering, and long-time incumbents crawling over each other to shout the merits of fiscal responsibility to anyone who will listen, challengers in several local races said they wanted to distinguish themselves from their office-holding opponents.

"To quote Alexis de Tocqueville, 'The Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money,'" said Bill Reed, who is running against incumbent assemblyman George Latimer in the 91st district. "Now, it's so bad we're allowing ourselves to be bribed with our grandchildren's money."

And that, Tea Party activists say, is the point. With national debt nearly matching the nation's GDP, and an administration that doesn't seem to mind adding billions to the tab, Westchester's Tea Party members said they're worried tomorrow's America will be a shadow of the prosperous nation they take pride in.

"People don't realize how close we are to losing it," said Michael Miller, a U.S. Coast Guard captain. "Freedom created so much affluence and prosperity which we now take for granted. Atlas is shrugging, it could get ugly."