Noting the organized effort to deploy Tea Party crashers,
Ann Althouse offers some words of advice for those who might feel overwhelmed:

1. If any Tea Partiers feel tempted to express themselves in a manner that can help their opponents paint the movement as racist/extreme/violent, they need to resist that temptation. If they now think it's okay or humorous or something, they'd better think again. They are hurting the movement.

2. Tea Partiers should look around and listen and notice people who might be Crashers. Whether they are Crashers or actual fringe Tea Partiers, talk with them. It's good for people at these gatherings to talk to each other and be friendly anyway. It helps project the image of normality, which, I think, is the reality with most Tea Partiers. And it's nicer for everyone, and it encourages even more participation by average folks. You can also reach out to the outlier types in your own movement and help them become more mainstream. And, in the process, you have a shot at detecting the frauds. That's all good.

3. People should talk a lot -- here for example -- and get the message out that those who attend a Tea Parties are going to be trying to spot the Crashers. They should fear exposure. Right now, the frauds may be assuming that Tea Partiers just accept people in their group who stand around with offensive signs and yell terrible things. That makes it easier to crash. But if they think your name and face will be all over the web displaying your ugly fakery, it will take some boldness to crash.

A personal appeal from a U of M student in Ann Arbor:

As the day of our Tax Day Tea Party approaches, we are hearing more and more about the dirty tactics the other side plans to employ in order to destroy our campus movement. Our protest began as an organic and genuine cry against the massive encroachment of the federal government upon our personal liberties. We have now been informed that the other side plans to bus people in from Metro Detroit and Detroit proper in an attempt to dwarf us. Campus is quite literally abuzz.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

The Opposition plans to arrive an hour before us, at 6:00pm. PLEASE, help us and try to arrive by 5:00pm if possible! Gather on the steps of the Hatcher Graduate Library so as to prevent the Opposition from doing so at 6:00. Many students will still be in class, so we need YOU to come and help us as we fight liberalism at Ground Zero: Ann Arbor! If you can only commit two hours, please consider coming early and then letting the students relieve you closer to 7pm.

Once again, we are outnumbered heavily, even at our own event. The other side has said that we should be destroyed as a movement on campus. We have received every sort of threat, taunt, and smear imaginable, and will continue to have them thrown at us through the rally. Let's show them they're wrong. NOW IS OUR TIME TO FIGHT BACK AND BEGIN THE PROCESS OF TAKING BACK OUR PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES!!!

To draw an analogy, this protest is NOT the equivalent of a Tea Party in Boston over 200 years ago. Rather, it is the equivalent of a Tea Party in London 200 years ago, at the heart of British power and the influence of the British Crown. WE HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT! JOIN US THIS THURSDAY and help us DEFEND LIBERTY at U of M!!!

Signed,

A U of M Student Patriot

As if that wasn't bad enough, now I see that the Geico gecko has been dragooned into becoming an anti-Tea Party reactionary! At long last, is there no shame?

Anyway, I'll be there, but I'm only one person among a small group of Tea Partiers, who are likely to be surrounded on all sides by bused-in outsiders and krazed Kossites. I encourage all who live in the southeast Michigan area to please show their support against the overwhelmed Michigan students by attending the Ann Arbor Tea Party if you can. Here's the Facebook information:

Date:
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Time:
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location:
University of Michigan Diag

I admire the courage of these young people for holding a Tea Party in a town as left wing as Ann Arbor.