{ the calling}


“


I GOT SOME DRAMAMINE


that’s supposed to knock me out,” says the elderly woman sitting nearby. “And I’ve got some headphones, too.” ¶ Her husband, nose in a book about the minor prophets of the Old Testament, does not look up, and the bus rolls on, past Springfield, then past smaller communities on Ohio’s green prairie: Limecrest, Brighton, Gillivan. Darkness falls, and the passengers begin chatting and passing little crinkly bags of Cheez-Its and miniature Oreos back and forth across the aisle. Now and again, laughter jingles over the steady blast of the air conditioner.


They met, all 51 of them, at dusk


outside of Dayton, in the vast parking lot of the Washington Heights Baptist Church. Most are from Dayton’s sub- urbs, but they started as strangers united by a common mission. Tomorrow, after their nine-hour journey, they will gath- er in the bright light of morning near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Pre- cisely 47 years after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at that vaunted monument, Glenn Beck, the populist Fox TV superstar, will join former Alaska governor Sarah Palin to address his Tea Party faithful at a rally of his own fervent making. “Restoring Honor,” it’s called. Beck


wants his fans to look past Presi- dent Obama and what Beck calls the


“most corrupt” administration ever, and to focus, instead, on the heroism of the nation’s God-fearing founding fa- thers, who established an exceptional republic, “a shining city on the hill,” by crafting the Declaration of Indepen- dence and the Constitution. The people on the bus all seem to share Beck’s ardor for those hallowed sheets of parchment. At the start of the trip, the tour leader gave each rider a souvenir copy of the Constitution and promised to show a film called “Fighting for Freedom: Rev- olution and Civil War” on the overhead video screens. But I wasn’t quite clear why, exactly, these folks were traveling to Washington, or what they stood for. Until recently, I’d never met a Tea Party supporter. I live in Portland, Ore., amid


10 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | OctOber 24, 2010


acupuncture clinics and co-op grocer- ies, in what may be the nation’s most un-Tea Party neighborhood, and I knew only that these patriots composed a political force poised to change the out- come of November races nationwide. On the bus, I would be embraced


and welcomed as a shaggy dog cousin from the Left Coast. I would meet so- licitous folks who would invite me into their homes back in Ohio. I’d ask hard questions about health care and taxes and race, and I would hear earnest dec- larations of religious faith. Most of the bus riders I meet readily


volunteer that they are, like Glenn Beck, devout Christians. The man sitting be- side me right now is even built like Glenn Beck. Dale Unroe, a 41-year-old


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164