Local Tea Party Gives Debate Win to Gingrich

If the presidential election was held today and Redlands could swing the vote, Newt Gingrich might well want to start packing for the White House.

It was the former Speaker of the House who came out on top in the eyes of those who attended the Redlands Tea Party Patriots debate viewing and live radio broadcast Tuesday.

About 60 people, most members of the Redlands Tea Party Patriots, which also serves Loma Linda, gathered at Mill Creek Cattle Co. to watch the Republican Presidential Candidate Debate presented by CNN. The debate focused on National Security.

Following the debate, Lou Desmond, host of Inland Empire News Hour on KTIE 590/AM moderated a panel featuring local businessmen Ed Hoffman, a mortgage broker; Clifford Cummings, president of San Bernardino Toyota; and Phil Naman, also a member of the Redlands Tea Party Patriots.

Most of the crowd liked Gingrich's message despite his stance on the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants who are in the country. There needs to be a selective service board type to review those who are here and a program that offers a path to earn citizenship should be created, Gingrich said.

“If you’ve come here recently and have no ties to this country you ought to go home, period,” Gingrich told the crowd in Washington D.C. “If you’ve been here 25 years, you have three kids, two grand kids, you’ve been paying taxes, obeying the law, you belong to the local church, I don’t think we’re going to separate you from your family, bring you in forcefully and kick you out.”

Gingrich may have walked away from Tuesday’s debate with a few more Redlands fans, but not all had him at the top of their candidate list. Some guests attended wearing “Caniacs” sweatshirts. Others banged fists or forks and spoons.

While Cain, a businessman, and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann got a lot of applause from the Redlands crowd, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman got little, even compared to Texas congressman Ron Paul, who called the Patriot Act unpatriotic before getting soft groans from the crowd while he explained he wanted to cancel the “failed” war on drugs.

Somewhere in the middle was Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. But the night belonged to Gingrich.

“How many of you remember Newt Gingrich telling the Occupiers to take a bath and get a job? How many people agree that they need to take a bath and get a job?” Desmond asked the cheering crowd.

“That folks is what you call anger,” Desmond said. “He’s showing an edge there. Newt Gingrich is tapping into that visceral sense that this country is not the country we had. That the path we are on is not a sustainable one. People are angry and worked up about that.”

Attendee Carol McEntire, of Yuciapa, said she was pretty pleased with what she heard from candidates.

“For the most part, with the exception of a few people, they answered the questions well,” she said. “They gave some enlightened answers.”

And she was also glad the event was held for the community.

“I think it’s always good to meet with a group of like-minded and kind of get their reaction to things and support,” she said.