Tea Party ‘gridlock’ protest fails to produce traffic

Tea Party activists planned to bring Capitol Hill traffic to a “traffic gridlock” Wednesday morning as a symbolic reminder to the new Congress members of their presence, but traffic continued as normal.

Organizers of “The American Drive In” said they estimated a few hundred people participated, but they did not have the impact they had hoped.

“It was no more traffic than D.C. usually sees, but we did get a message across,” said Robert, a Tea Party organizer who did not wish to be further identified. “We’re making sure that the [newly-elected Congressmen] keep their promises to us, the citizens who elected them.”

For these Tea Party members, repealing the health care legislation should be the first item on the freshman representatives’ to-do list.

“A lot of these new congressmen ran on the platform of repealing ObamaCare,” Tim Selaty, a Tea Party activist said. “We will hold them accountable to that.”

In response to the drive-in, Selaty said some congressmen were “miffed.”

“Freshmen congressmen called and said, ‘Hey, we just got here,’” Selaty said. “They said that we were jumping the gun…but they need to know that we’re not going to let the ‘we tried’ excuse slide.”

Despite the small turn-out, Robert said the drive-in foreshadows more Tea Party events: “This is just the beginning.”