Tea partiers made a strong showing earlier this month at the 20-year-old Pennsylvania Leadership Conference’s annual gathering in Camp Hill. Many of the 700 participants were there for the first time, and the movement is thought to be behind the robust turnout.
"I'd say we're not part of the Republican Party, but certainly sympathetic to Republican candidates," Dan Mosel, cofounder of the tea party group Central Pennsylvania Patriots, told
HumanEvents.com’s John Gizzi.
Last year, tea party-aligned voters claimed victories in the elections of Republican Sen. Pat Toomey and five House Republicans.
The state’s GOP County Committeeman Jeff Griffith said that last fall, "more than 40 new members were elected to the [Republican] County Committee and we removed the chairman, who was not sympathetic to the Tea Party movement…. This is a clash between what we are fighting against and what we are fighting for. It's really about the Tea Party movement."
Conference organizer Fred Anton believes Pennsylvania’s tea partiers are in step with Republicans: "The Tea Party is here in a big way, and they are in the Republican tent."
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