While seemingly all of Washington media was abuzz with tea leaf-reading following Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearing on Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, several hundred tea partiers gathered outside the Senate to do what they do best: commit to repealing “Obamacare” and throwing out the politicians who voted for it in the first place.
Even as pundits began to wager that the mandate was on death watch after Tuesday’s Supreme Court arguments, tea party leaders insisted they’re not playing the speculation game. None of the high-profile tea party speakers on stage even mentioned the day’s court news or the media reaction to it.
“In the end, I think the Congress is going to have this legislation back in their laps no matter what the court does,” Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-backed group behind the largest tea party rallies and the emcee for Tuesday’s gathering, told TPM after the rally.
“We hope the court does the right thing, but honestly I have no idea,” he said. “The parlor game of trying to figure out which justice is leaning what way, that’s just not what we do.”
Phillips wasn’t ready to call it a victory celebration — he said the point of the rally was simply to show the court that conservatives want the law gone.
“Our goal today was to make sure the court and the Congress heard from a lot of Americans who want to see this legislation repealed because they’re only human,” he said. “I know the judiciary is supposed to not be influenced, but they’re human beings — they’re like you and me. It makes a difference to make sure they understand the mood of the country. So that’s our goal.”
Smart phones abounded at the gathering, many rally-goers eagerly snapped pictures of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and other tea party notables who addressed the crowd, but many of those in attendance said they hadn’t kept up on Tuesday’s court session and had no idea what the scuttlebutt was.
They certainly didn’t learn about it from the people on stage. Bachmann, DeMint, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) stuck to the talking points in their brief remarks on stage, none of them appearing to believe the earth had moved under their feet in the previous couple hours.
In truth, it sounded and looked exactly like every other AFP-backed tea party rally on health care has since the 2010 wave election. The protesters were bused in from around the country and most of them held the ubiquitous pre-printed “Hands Off My Healthcare” signs. Though there was a smattering of the nastier stuff on handmade placards, including at least one birther sign and another reading simply, “Obama Terrorist,” for the most part was a slick, well-organized gathering of middle-aged and senior conservative Americans — nothing like the fiery, chaotic town hall events that came to characterize the health care debate in 2009.
Phillips said there’s good reason for that: The tea party health care fight was always about politics, and whatever happened at the court Tuesday isn’t likely to change that.
“No matter what the court does, [the health care law] will be an issue in November,” Phillips said. “The president is embracing this legislation. Good. We’re going to help him do that.”
