Tea Party in St. Cloud Produces Massive Turnout

I had some comp time coming, so I took a couple hours off of work today to attend the St. Cloud Tea Party. I arrived around the time it started, and much to my pleasant surprise, there were no parking spaces left in the area, and I ended up parked two blocks away from the event. The turnout was, in a word, HUGE (click on pics for full size):

A rough guesstimate (and a conservative one at that) would have been between 700 and 800 attendees. Mind you, this was held during noon on a weekday, so a pretty good turnout, considering, unlike a rent-an-ACORN mob rally, most of these folks have day jobs, as well.

Of course, there were quite a few clever signs in the crowd:
And the poignant:

And this guy, who by the looks of him you'd have sworn came from the RNC welcoming committee, rose up to speak to the masses:
Not only did he have a great message, he seemed to be a guy who had "an in" with Willie Nelson and Jesse:

And of course, Jim Knoblach, our former Minnesota State Representative and former Chair of the Minnesota House Ways & Means Committee, not to mention current candidate for Committee chair for U.S. House CD-6 GOP, had this to say:

Admittedly, conservatives don't have the protest thing down as much as liberals, because for the most part we've been traditionally too busy producing, working, and "living the dream" to even have time. But the socialist policies of the current administration have served to waken a sleeping giant.

The "silent majority" is silent no more!

We may not have the protest thing down quite as well as you neo-marxists....

But we'll get there.