My Dear Fellow Patriots;
The Staten Island Tea Party, like so many thousands of tea party groups throughout the country, has been evolving.Indeed, those groups that do not evolve, that remain stuck in time and place, are destined to become obsolete and will watch their influence slowly die. Those who believe that their ultimate goal is to act as noisemakers, forever shaking their fists at the powers-that-be while they stand on the outside looking in, are doomed to a future of irrelevance.
With our passion and our numbers, we have garnered tremendous attention - however, our ability to shape events and policies as outsiders is inevitably going to wane. That is my belief.
But from the inside - we can transform the way politics is done.
In a little over a year-and-a-half, we have seen our numbers grow from 2 to 2,000. But if we are to maintain our relevance we must be ready and willing to take a bold next step: we are going to fundamentally change the Republican Party on Staten Island.
We are instituting a project that will transform the Staten Island Republican County Committee into a group that reflects the conservative ideals and principles espoused by the tea party movement: fiscal sanity, free markets and a constitutionally-limited government.
In order to do this we need volunteers who are willing to move beyond rallies and campaign work, and who are ready to actually step into the process. We need men and women who are willing to take seats on the committee, in order to make sure that the reins of control are returned to the hands of the people, and to make sure that the era of “good-ol’-boy” cronyism is ended.
It is our intention to transform the committee so that we may nominate candidates not because they are next in line, or because they have friends in high places, but because they represent our core beliefs. We want to institute fresh and aggressive ideas to pro-actively grow a NEW Republican Party on Staten Island, one that will reach out to college campuses and minority communities, to show them that free-market Republican and Conservative values are the best way to achieve the American dream.
In short, we need you - hundreds of you. And because there are two seats in each Electoral District, husband-and-wife teams are especially welcomed.
You will not be asked to speak in public or to any groups; it will cost you no money; you will need to do no public campaigning and you will not become a public figure.
You will be asked to attend TWO meetings a year. That's it - two meetings a year to transform the way politics works on Staten Island.
With your help we will get this thing done; we will take this first step toward once again being a Republic of the people, by the people and for the people – and we will do it one district at a time.
I cannot stress this enough: you need no prior knowledge of the inner workings of the committee system - only a belief in the core principals of the tea party movement.
Simply visit www.teapartyinfo.com/administrators-only.html for more information and a registration form. If asked for a password, it is: constitution
Thank you for your time and dedication. Within a few days or weeks after you register, you will receive notification about a meeting at which we will explain the process in much greater detail.
When we say that we have much work to be done - these are not merely words. Thomas Paine said "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country."
I hope to hear from many, many of you soon. If it is at all possible for you to help, please do not be a sunshine patriot, and do not shrink from the service of our country.
Yours in Liberty,
Frank Santarpia
Staten Island, NY
