Tea Party leaders are organizing a counter-rally in Madison, Wisc. to support newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker against the labor unions that have been protesting his proposed budget cuts all week. Conservative media guru Andrew Breitbart, possible 2012 presidential candidate Herman Cain and other notables are en route to Madison for the counter-rally, scheduled to begin at noon central time on Saturday.
Walker is pushing a new budget that would eliminate some collective bargaining privileges for public sector employees, which he says has been a long time coming. Wisconsin’s Democratic state senators fled on Thursday to thwart a vote on the measure. There are 19 Republican senators, and while they hold the majority, 20 senators total are required for a vote. So the budget cannot pass until the GOP gets one more senator on board.
Public sector unions, led by the Democratic National Committee’s lobbying and campaign arm, “Organizing for America,” have descended on the state’s capitol in an effort to keep Walker’s budget from being approved. Big-name union bosses such as AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka have bussed in union folks from around the country to support the cause, and Jesse Jackson appeared in Madison as well. Several public schools throughout the state have closed down due to teachers calling in sick to protest.
Saturday’s counter-rally is the first of many likely counter-attacks from Tea Partiers.
Breitbart told The Daily Caller he’s not sure what he’ll see when he arrives in Wisconsin, but expects it will be “the same familiar faces” that back other left-wing movements.
“I’m expecting hostility because dissent is no longer patriotic in Obama’s America,” Breitbart said.
Breitbart said this weekend’s rally will be important — a historic battleground of sorts — because it will show the Tea Party movement is alive and kicking despite a decrease in activity following the midterm elections. He said it’s time for the press to stop defending the Obama administration and start pointing out the “illogical rhetoric” of the union bosses and so-called civil rights leaders.
“This is an important stance for the Tea Party,” Breitbart said. “The Tea Party is perpetuating safe, clean, wholesome rhetoric and activity versus the violent, racial, hateful and revolutionary rhetoric coming from the organized left.”
