The rally along Menaul Boulevard between San Pedro and Wyoming was ostensibly to protest paying taxes to the federal government. But irresponsible government spending topped almost every list of concerns, and many activists brimmed with cost-saving ideas.

Eliminate the federal Department of Education.

Reduce foreign aid.

Starve the defense budget.

Cut back or phase out big domestic spending programs – specifically Medicaid (the government health insurance program for low-income Americans, a similar program for the elderly (Medicare), and Social Security.

“We are not our brothers’ keeper,” said Gabrielle Kotoski, a devotee of Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged who is enjoying a renaissance of sorts among Tea Party types nearly 30 years after her death.

“If they say that I am their keeper then they are asserting that I am their slave,” said Kotoski, who handed out small booklets at Thursday’s rally containing essays from The Virtue of Selfishness, one of Rand’s books.

Kotoski receives Medicare benefits and admitted the seeming incongruity of benefiting from the program while suggesting that it be phased out, along with other large domestic programs.

“I hate that I’m on it,” she said of Medicare. She spoke of “our children, and our grandchildren,” and how they won’t be “enslaved by a government forcing them to take care of other people,” she added.

Despite the Tea Party’s seeming mantra about limiting government, a consensus on Kotoski’s idea was hard to find in the crowd, with other activists debating whether, and how deeply, to cut back government ‘entitlement’ programs.

Some, like Kotoski, supported scrapping Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, but said it was unfair to deny those individuals already receiving benefits from continuing to get them.

“You don’t want to cut benefits” for those receiving Social Security now, said Jeff Peterson of Albuquerque, who supported changing the rules in a decade or so to allow people to invest their own money to build a nest egg.

Others thought eliminating entrenched programs would never occur, even if it sounded good on paper.

“America began with a limited government,” said Gary Weiner, an Albuquerque small business owner. “It’s moved in the other direction. It steals the soul of the people.”

But eliminating existing programs would prove difficult, the Albuquerque businessman admitted.

“It’s pretty hard to change them,” he said, which is why “you try to stop the new programs,” referring to the nation’s new health care reform law.

GOP hopes to harness the energy—and anger—of the Tea Party

Because it has harnessed the anger or frustration people are feeling, the Tea Party has emerged as the most potent political phenomenon this election cycle, leading the national Republican Party to hope it can harness that energy.

New Mexico is no different.

“In ’08 all the enthusiasm was with the Obama campaign,” said Brian Sanderoff of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc., which surveys New Mexico’s political mood and voters’ leanings in many electoral contests. “The enthusiasm has shifted to the right. Liberals seem to be more passive.”

The Tea Party movement, in some ways, bears a similarity to Ross Perot’s run for the presidency in 1992, said University of New Mexico political scientist Lonna Atkeson, although the Tea Party hasn’t yet coalesced around a leader.

The closest thing the Tea Party has might be Glenn Beck, whom 59 percent of Tea Party activists admitted liking in a recent national poll. Beck had proposed eliminating the Department of Education the day before Thursday’s protests, which might have explained the many activists who suggested cutting that to save money Thursday. (Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is popular, but only 40 percent of Tea Party activists believe she’d be a good leader, according to the same poll.)

It was unclear Thursday how many of those in attendance watch Beck or Palin’s new show on Fox.

Stephen Smith of Los Lunas said he’s a fan of FoxNews because the mainstream media never informed Americans as to how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were faring, he said.

“The mainstream media tells you what to think and calls you a racist and Nazi if you don’t agree with them,” Smith said. FoxNews “not only informs you. They educate you. They show all sides and let you decide.”

That kind of anger is what the national GOP hopes to tap into this year to win back congressional seats that were lost in 2008. But beware any Republican official who views the Tea Party an arm of the GOP, officials and observers have said.

Tea Party candidates in other states are complicating the GOP’s electoral fortunes, running neck-and-neck or even outpacing party-tapped candidates. Marco Rubio in Florida is leading Gov. Charlie Crist in the GOP Senate primary. And Rand Paul, Ron Paul’s son, has led Kentucky’s Secretary of State Trey Grayson in that state’s GOP senate primary.

“The Republicans better get their act together because they can’t take these votes for granted,” Weiner said of New Mexico’s Tea Party activists. Weiner stood under a homemade placard of simple design: a check above the word Capitalism; next to it was an X over the word Socialism.

Janelle Causey, spokeswoman for the New Mexico Republican Party, seemed to recognize that tension.

“As we near Election day it is our job to put forward conservative candidates,” she said. “We also respect and recognize it’s an independent, grass-roots movement and they probably want to keep it that way.”

There’s a natural strain between a party whose priority is electing candidates and a movement based on an ideology, which values purity and conviction, Sanderoff said.

“Party people tend to be more pragmatic than people who come together under an ideological idea,” Sanderoff said.

American history has shown that such movements can breathe new life into the two major political parties. But they also can backfire, Atkeson said.

“They could nominate more conservative members who can’t attract a broad base of support,” said Atkeson, the UNM political science professor. That occurred in New Mexico’s 2008 senate race, when the GOP nominated Steve Pearce to run against Tom Udall. Pearce ran to the right rather than moving to the center as politicians often do in a general election, and lost to Udall by more than 20 points.

Ideas fueling the movement

In some ways folks attending Albuquerque’s Tea Party rally resembled their counterparts across the country, based on a small sample of interviews.

Many who spoke with the Independent on Thursday described themselves as conservative in keeping with national statistics. More often than not they also listed themselves as Republicans, although Democrats and Independents were in attendance.

Also similar to national polls on Tea Party activists, most of those attending Albuquerque’s rally Thursday were white; a recent poll found that nearly 90 percent of Tea Party activists are white. Many of Albuquerque’s attendees also looked to be nearing middle age and older, tracking national poll numbers: nearly three out of every four Tea Party activists are 45 or older, according to that same recent poll.

Anthony Thornton, an aerospace engineer, bucked two of those trends. He is African American and a Democrat, although he said Thursday he was rethinking his party affiliation.

Thornton, who waved a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, seemed as concerned as other attendees of Thursday’s event about governmental overspending.

“The main thing is we’re penalizing success, and rewarding failure,” Thornton said, referring to the government’s bail out of big banks and financial firms that contributed to the recent economic downturn.

He also spoke of an “entitlement mentality” that he sees creeping across society.

Thornton’s presence illustrated one major point: the diversity of reasons people came out to attend Thursday’s rally.

Irresponsible government spending may have been a constant refrain. But it wasn’t the only big idea represented. Activists listed national indebtedness, abortion, a growing lassitude across society and too much corporate influence as concerns.

Activists also bristled at the idea of extending jobless benefits to the nation’s unemployed.

“Unemployment benefits are going longer and longer,” said Dalia Núñez of Albuquerque. A Democrat, Núñez was attending Thursday’s rally with her husband, Louis, a Republican.

The new federal health care law, meanwhile, came in for special lambasting as several activists cited the process by which Congress passed the health care reform law as an example of how the Obama administration had trampled on the U.S. Constitution.

They specifically noted the backroom deals, especially the ‘Cornhusker kickback,’ as many called it. That deal would have given Nebraska an additional $100 million in Medicaid funding to Nebraska. Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., offered that enticement back in December to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson to win the 60^th senate vote. The deal didn’t make it into the final health care reform law, however.

Tax cuts were also a common refrain at Thursday’s rally, which matched national poll numbers that reveal Tea Party activists’ preference for tax cuts over a focus on the nation’s budget deficit.

“I’d do what Ronald Reagan did,” said David Blair of Tijeras. “He cut taxes. That created incentives for small businesses to hire people.”

In fact, Thursday’s rally had an ad hoc, impromptu feel to it rather than the canned vibe so many political events give off.

“There’s no speaker here. You had to work to figure where to come,” said Weiner, the Albuquerque small business owner, referring to the Tea Party’s de-centralized, grass-roots feel.

What Thursday was like

A mostly festive atmosphere permeated Thursday’s event. There was the occasional “Obama sucks” blurted out and rarer jousts with vehicle passengers who yelled “Blame Bush, blame Bush” or held up “I trust Obama” signs as the cars they were in drifted past the protesters.

For the most part, however, motorists honked in support or sympathy with the protesters.

For Louis and Dalia Núñez, Thursday represented a special occasion. And their special occasion was a reminder that while Republicans might be walking a tight rope with Tea Party activists, Democrats and their allies dismiss Tea Party activists at their own peril.

“We’ve been married 50 years,” Louis, a Republican, said Thursday of his Democratic wife. “This is the first time we’ve come together” politically.

Dalia chimed in: “It’s the first time we’ve agreed.”

Need proof? There it is on White’s ankle.

My question to the White camp is when did White get the Reagan signature tat — and the obvious  follow-up, does he have any others and where?

Maybe Newt Gingrich’s smiling mug over his heart?

I will report back with any response.