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Jeff "the janitor" Harrison described his status as unofficial spokesman for the Elk County Freedom Fighters as tentative:
"I'm unpaid, unqualified, unappreciated," he said.
But he added that he sure likes to push back against taxation and "outrageous" government spending. He drove three hours Saturday to protest in Harrisburg on behalf of his sons.
"What are they going to have?" asked the self-described "poor working stiff" from Buffalo, N.Y. "This [national] debt is going to kill them."
He joined a crowd of Tea Partyers who gathered on the Capitol steps to sign a petition against fiscal irresponsibility and hear conservative luminary Dick Armey speak.
Armey never showed. Bad weather grounded his plane in North Carolina, event organizers said. But a demonstrative time was had by all.
Some 2,000 protesters from across the state mustered on City Island in the early afternoon and marched across the Walnut Street bridge, chanting "Stop spending, now!"
The column bore to the right, up State Street, hoisting yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags, and signs with slogans such as "Democrats Against Ed Spendell."
Some protesters portrayed American Colonial-era rebels. Others lugged kids, cameras and the odd anti-war poster.
Krystal O'Conner had hidden a small, black Ruger pistol in an ankle holster under her jeans. It was "a protection item" only, she said.
Marchers professed to be nonpartisan, though there was considerable Obama bashing and lifting up of Ronald Reagan and conservative commentator Glenn Beck.
The crowd was eclectic, agreed Harrison. Everyone had other ways they could be spending their Saturday, he added. But it was important to get the Tea Party message across.
"We want the government to do what it's supposed to do."
Bailout bluesOpponents say Tea Party protesters should be fighting corporate tax loopholes instead of tilting at public sector programs, such as health care reform.
They question the movement's grass-roots credentials, pointing to a Nov. 9 New York Times story that had the nonprofit FreedomWorks paying Dick Armey $550,000 for his services last year.
FreedomWorks has been a key Tea Party organizer.
Critics also like to chide Tea Partyers for botching their history.
The original 1773 rebellion in Boston slammed a corporate tax cut aimed at creating a British monopoly, said Director Sharon Ward in a statement from the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center.
Marchers Saturday said their self-governance spirit burned as purely as that of old.
The event was sponsored by the Pennsylvania Tea Party Patriots Coalition.
It featured a convoy of truckers, who cruised around the capital complex and honked their horns to protest making Interstate 80 a toll road.
It included a talk by Tea Party firebrand Ana Puig and a performance by "conservative rapper" Hi-Caliber.
"Don't believe the hype that the media provokes," warned Hi-Caliber, standing at the stolid base of the Capitol dome as people fluttered their hands rythmically overhead.
Rob Mitchell, who said he is exploring challenging Democrat Patrick Murphy in the 8th Congressional District in Bucks County, told the crowd that state spending has ballooned by about 46 percent in 10 years.
Now, he added, the Obama administration is threatening to add more debt with its cap-and-trade pollution control proposal.
"They are literally printing money like it is going out of style — and my friends — the dollar is going out of style," Mitchell said.
Freer markets are the antidote, added Mitchell, who called for revitalizing the state's coal and natural gas industries.
Grier Haslam said he saw no irony in cooperating with mainstream politicians to shrink government.
One reason he and his wife, Carol, drove to the rally from Monroe County was to hear Armey, the former House majority leader, Haslam said.
Haslam added that he ran Ross Perot's 1992 third-party presidential campaign in Pennsylvania.
Now, he said, it's again time to "pick and choose your advocates. I think you have to work with the legitimate powers that espouse what you believe."
Jon Rutter is a staff writer for the Sunday News. His e-mail address is jrutter@lnpnews.com.
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