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Sal Russo here, from the Tea Party Express II: Countdown to Judgment Day. One month ago I had the privilege of riding along in the ‘red’ Tea Party Express bus, serving in my capacity as Chief Strategist for the conservative group Our Country Deserves Better Committee, which is the principle sponsor of the Tea Party Express.

It was an incredible journey across America, being with the tens of thousands of people who turned out for the tea party rallies we held across the country, leading up to the giant 9/12 March on the U.S. Capitol. It was so successful because many great conservative groups and leaders came together, and we were joined by hundreds of thousands of people who have become active in the political process for the first time in their lives.

Scene from New Lenox Tea Party Express Rally with 10,000+ People on Hand

I got my start in politics working for then candidate for California Governor, Ronald Reagan, after I met him via my involvement in the Youth for Goldwater movement. I was blessed to be hired on to work for Governor Reagan in the Governor’s Office after he won his election, and have been able to participate in his incredible success for the rest of his career. Being on the Tea Party Express, I felt a similar sense of energy and excitement in this movement that I felt back in the 1960′s when Reagan inspired people to get involved in politics to take our country back, and again when he won the presidency in 1980.

Reagan himself became familiar with the problems that would ensue when you achieve success. He had a great quality in him where he would face his critics head on, defend himself and his principles, and continue pressing forward with a smile — undeterred in his ambitions to restore America to that “shining city on a hill” that he believed in so deeply.

That is what we must do now with the Tea Party Express II.

As a result of our success fromo the first tour and the 9/12 March on DC, the Tea Party Express, and the entire tea party movement came under attack from the Left. This is to be expected, as our success has sent a shockwave through Washington, D.C., the political Left, and the media.

You’ve all seen in the past few weeks how our friend Rush Limbaugh came under fire when it was announced he was pursuing partial ownership of the St. Louis Rams professional football team, and how the Left raised such a firestorm that Limbaugh was forced out of the deal. You saw the smears directed at our ally Glenn Beck because of the success of his Fox News TV program, his best-selling new book and radio show. You’ve seen how the great Gov. Palin has been mocked and ridiculed by those who are bitter, envious and jealous of the tremendous interest being shown for her new memoirs and her political future.

Well, we here at the Tea Party Express, and those in the greater tea party movement, have faced our fair share of attacks too. Some of them you might have seen: everything from Jimmy Carter calling us all a bunch of racists, to the media dismissing us as ‘hate groups’ and a ‘radical fringe,’ to liberals insisting our movement was ‘astroturf’ and didn’t speak for what real Americans thought and felt about the failures of our leaders in Washington. Having spent a lifetime fighting against the liberal establishment, I am accustomed to these attacks and they only signal to me that we are being successful.

What does sadden and disturb me was to see even a few fellow conservatives or tea party activists take shots at us as well. Just like some malcontent conservatives say we should condemn Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh from our midst because they disagree with this or that, the Tea Party Express faces the same silliness, and the same ugliness. Most conservatives follow the Reagan line that politics is about addition, not subtraction. Unfortunately a few bad apples don’t embrace this model.

So we put our chin up, folks, because in politics you learn to understand that when you are successful all sorts of people will take a whack at you – it’s the nature of the beast. I I could go through listing all the various attacks that have been launched against us and rebut them point-by-point, but that would just compel those who wish us to fail to make new allegations against us. It’s a never-ending battle, as Gov. Palin found out when the Left started filing all those frivilous ethics complaints against her. It wasn’t long before even a few wrong-headed conservatives were turning on her too, playing right into the lands of the liberals.

So instead of telling you who we aren’t – and listing all the various attacks and explaining why they either aren’t true or are misleading, I’m simply going to tell you what we stand for and who we ARE.

The Tea Party Express is an effort made possible by the support of all sorts of different patriotic Americans coming together with basic, shared, common goals. We are generally “conservative” although some would bristle at that description and prefer to be called ‘libertarians’ or ‘constitutionalists’ or students of ‘objectivism.’ I helped start Our Country Deserves Better Committee, which is the lead sponsor of the Tea Party Express, during the last campaign season to call voters attention to the far-left policies we could expect if Barack Obama were elected President, and to rally Americans to oppose these policies and Obama’s candidacy. The Our Country Deserves Better Committee continues to be a thriving project that wouldn’t be possible if many different individuals associated with many different other groups didn’t all work together to advance the shared cause we believe in.

On the first Tea Party Express tour we had the fantastic support of individuals from Free Republic, FreedomWorks, local chapters of the Tea Party Patriots, the National Tax Limitation Committee, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, local 9/12 chapters (inspired by Glenn Beck), ResistNet, Smart Girl Politics, the new media outfit – Parcbench, the MultiCultural Conservative Coalition, and countless others.

I could spend an entire email telling you all the different groups that had representatives, members and leaders helping to make the Tea Party Express a success. Not to mention, we had thousands of people who have become active in politics for the very first time in their lives.

Many of these same individuals from these same great organizations are helping to put together the Tea Party Express II: Countdown to Judgment Day.

And you know what? We here at the Tea Party Express don’t always agree with every single thing one of our partners’ actions, beliefs or declarations – and they don’t always agree with us.

But what we are doing, and have done, is to work where we have common ground.

Here are the issues we highlight on the side of our Tea Party Express buses which helpt to define what we believe:

• End the Bailouts!
• Reduce the Size & Intrusiveness of Government!
• Stop the Out-Of-Control Spending!
• No Government-Run Healthcare
• Stop Raising Our Taxes

That list is meant to serve as highlights of the issues we are fighting for, and is by no means exhaustive. Those issues speak to what the real divide is in American politics now: those who believe in more freedom for the individual and those who believe in less freedom for the individual, and more power for government.

With this second Tea Party Express tour we are going to begin serving notice to those politicians who face our opposition because of their actions to embrace big-government, higher-tax, socialistic policies, and we are going to ask the American people to join us in our efforts to defeat these ‘worst offenders’ in government.

We don’t have to agree with each other on every single issue in this tea party movement. We don’t have to always like the leader of this-or-that group. We just have to understand that we are a stronger force when we unite for those values we commonly share.

That was the secret to Ronald Reagan’s success: he built alliances with those who agreed with him on the issues he was passionate about and never allowed his critics or detractors (whether Democrat, fellow Republican, or in the media) to stop him from fighting for what he believed in.

I think a great humorous Reagan quote that sums up the battle we are facing in America is this:

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Ronald Reagan was by no means perfect. But neither are any of us. The best we can do is to keep fighting to leave this nation better than we found it. And that’s what we are trying to do with the Tea Party Express, and I hope you will continue to join with us in this fight, step-by-step.

Now, before I end this note to you, I have a few great announcements I’d like to make.

The first one I think would make Ronald Reagan, proud. We were just notified on Monday that one of the two buses that will be used in the Tea Party Express II is actually “The Ronald Reagan.” It was the same tour bus recently used in Glenn Beck’s book promotion tour. And we are honored to be traveling upon it. Here’s a graphic of what the bus will look like once it’s been “wrapped” in the Tea Party Express logo design:

The second announcement is that we have now uploaded many of the specific rally locations for the Tea Party Express II: Countdown to Judgment Day. You can find the locations for most of the rallies now at our website: http://www.TeaPartyExpress.org

The final announcement actually relates to one of the criticisms that has been made against us in the past few weeks: ‘they must be doing something wrong, they always ask for money for their efforts.’

This is true, and with good reason. The buses, rallies, TV ads, staff, and resultant energy we’ve helped to generate for the tea party movement would not be possible without the support of people like you. It’s a massive effort to coordinate a national effort like this – especially when you are challenging those in power, and those who support the liberal establishment in Washington.

When people ask if the money invested in this effort is worth it, my reply is this: judge us by our record.

Below is just one of the hundreds of television newscasts from rallies that took place during the first Tea Party Express. If you believe we are a positive force for America, then please support this effort with a donation. We have a lot of money left to raise to fully fund this trip – and we have just 5 days until we launch. You can contribute online at our website, after watching this video of news coverage of our Tea Party Express below:

Now, when you watch that video you can see and hear for yourself what the Tea Party Express is about. You can see what we stand for, and the energy we’ve tapped into and are helping to build.

We need your support once again, folks, to make the Tea Party Express II tour even bigger, and more impactful than the last. So please, honor us with a contribution to our effort within these next 5 days before we launch. Whether you can pitch in $25, or make a more generous contribution of $100 or $500 or more, we will be grateful all the same.

If you prefer you can also mail in a contribution to our headquarters:

Our Country Deserves Better Committee
ATTN: Tea Party Project
770 L Street #1020
Sacramento, CA 95814

Thank you so much for your continued support. Now let’s go help save this country from the wrong track we are currently headed on!

Sal Russo
Chief Strategist, Tea Party Express
www.TeaPartyExpress.org