'Tea Party' tax protest is brewing

As many as several hundred people are expected to appear at the U.S. Customhouse in Charleston today as part of a nationwide "Tea Party" protest aimed at the growing federal spending and ultimately the higher taxes that will bring.

And while U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint is scheduled to talk to the crowd early on at 5:30 p.m., the event is not a Republican gathering but instead a grass-roots Internet-based campaign among less partisan voters who feel a need to speak out.

The informal nature of the gathering was underscored when Lowcountry organizers planned two Tea Parties at the same time.

Ultimately, the one set for the Windjammer on the Isle of Palms was canceled because it conflicted with the one at the Customhouse.

"This is an Internet phenomenon — these Tea Parties," said Clemson University political science professor David Woodard, who noted there are two such parties near Clemson. "I think this is a phenomenon created, not by one person or one group, but a viral thing that's traveling the Internet in a way that not one person can control."

One of the state's biggest Tea Parties may take place outside the Statehouse in Columbia early this afternoon.

Charleston County GOP Chairwoman Lin Bennett has talked with many who plan to attend the event in Charleston, and they're not just party regulars.

"Basically, their frustration is their representatives are not listening to them," Bennett said. "They're not happy with out-of-control spending, and while we're hearing that taxes won't go up, any intelligent person knows when you're spending trillions of dollars, taxes are going up at some point. You'd have to be stupid not to believe that."

Woodard said conservatives also realize that they must do more to tap the power of the Internet if they're going to regain power.

"Campaigning is changing every cycle, and the Obama phenomenon taught Republicans a lot of things. They say we got our clock cleaned in 2008 because of social media — Facebook, Twitter, MySpace. They tapped that kind of association and social networks," he said. "They did it so well that every Republican I've talked to in every place I've been is just eaten up saying, 'We've got to do this.' "

The Tea Party is set to run from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., but the Web site, charlestonteaparty.org, had few details about the program, other than a description that it would be nonpartisan and family-friendly. Keith Malinak, radio host at WSC-FM 94.3, is set to serve as the emcee.

One local organizer, Bryan Keelin, said in an online statement: "Taxpayers are tired of handing their hard-earned money over to the irresponsible spending priorities of government. This rally will allow citizens to stand up and voice their opposition to the generational stealing going on in Washington, D.C."

The original Boston Tea Party in 1773 went down in history as colonists dressed as Indians and dumped loads of imported tea into that city's harbor to protest Britain's new taxes on it. Charleston had a related but somewhat less-dramatic protest, as 257 chests of tea were impounded in the Old Exchange Building — just a few blocks south of the Customhouse.