Tea partiers will make 44 stops on tour

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TEA PARTY EXPRESS GETS ROLLING

A "Tea Party" group will launch a nationwide series of rallies Saturday.

March 27: Laughlin, Searchlight and Las Vegas, Nev.

March 28: Phoenix and Flagstaff, Ariz.

March 29: St. George, Utah

March 30: Provo and Salt Lake City, Utah

March 31: Grand Junction and Denver, Colo.

April 1: North Platte and Omaha

April 2: Topeka, Kan., and Tulsa

April 3: Little Rock, and Tupelo, Miss.

April 4: Huntsville, Ala., and Nashville

April 5: Evansville, Ind., St. Louis, Mo., and Springfield, Ill.

April 6: Davenport, Iowa, Rockford, Ill., and Madison, Wis.

April 7: Milwaukee, Green Bay and Eau Claire, Wis.

April 8: Minneapolis and Duluth, Minn., and Ironwood, Mich.

April 9: Escanaba and Sault Sainte Marie, Mich.

April 10: Traverse City, Grand Rapids and Lansing, Mich.

April 11: Detroit, Cleveland and Erie, Pa.

April 12: Buffalo and Syracuse, N.Y.

April 13: Albany, N.Y., and Concord, N.H.

April 14: Boston

April 15: Washington

Source: TeaPartyExpress.org

By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

"Tea Party" activists are going after politicians they want removed from office by launching a national bus tour to 44 rallies.
After a kickoff rally Saturday in Laughlin, Nev., the tour stops in Searchlight, Nev., hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who shepherded the health care bill that President Obama signed into law Tuesday.

Reid "says if people have a hard time, they should sit on a couch, put their hands out and somebody will take care of them," says Debbie Landis, who is organizing Tea Party events in Nevada. "We are hard-working, industrious people. We don't need altruism legislation and every aspect of our life under government control."


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Reid's spokesman, Jon Summers, said the health care law is helping businesses pay for insurance for their employees and making it available to people who lost it when they lost their jobs or otherwise can't afford it, he said.

Summers dismissed the idea that Tea Party activity threatens Reid.

"I'm not sure the people who make up this movement are people who would have been Reid supporters to start with," he said.

The Tea Party is the name adopted by a loose confederation of fiscally conservative small-government activists.

The bus tour will stop in 23 states, ending in Washington on April 15, the tax filing deadline.

It ends on Tax Day to highlight "how much money the federal government is taking from the people," said Sal Russo, a Republican strategist from Sacramento.

Russo is chief strategist for Tea Party Express, a project of the Our Country Deserves Better political action committee, which he says is funded by thousands of donors who contributed an average $60 each.

Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, will headline the Searchlight rally. Also appearing: Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, who was popular at Republican rallies in 2008 after he confronted then-candidate Barack Obama over taxes.

Activists have chartered buses to attend the Searchlight rally from central and Southern California, Arizona, Texas and Utah, and smaller groups are traveling from almost every state, said Tiffiny Ruegner, director of field operations for Tea Party Express.

The rest of the tour will stop in the districts of members of Congress who have voted for legislation that Tea Party activists consider to be overspending.

"We generally try to go to areas where there are going to be competitive elections," Russo said. "Our goal is to change the people in power in Washington D.C."

"To have our voices heard, we need to reach across state lines," Ruegner said. "We're showing our support for the people of Nevada who are going to be voting Harry Reid out in November."

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