By TOM GIAMBRONI Staff Writer

LISBON -A second Tea Party may be held this Saturday to capitalize on the momentum of the April 15 event that drew between 500 and 600 people to downtown Lisbon.

Organizer Robert "Duke" Bennett of Wellsville said they are hoping to hold a Tea Party Saturday at Clark Field in Newell, W.Va., if they are able to pull the event together in time.

Bennett said they originally tried to hold it on the grounds of the World's Largest Teapot in Chester, W.Va., which is on state property, and it would be too much of a hassle to obtain permission.

"Since we couldn't get the largest Teapot in the World, we decided we would use the largest pottery in the world," he said, referring to the Homer Laughlin Co., which is located behind Clark Field.

The Tea Party is a movement that has spread to every state, organized by Americans upset with the country's direction of the last nine months, but especially since President Obama took office, and the policies that have followed. The local group believes in change through peaceful means, such as lobbying legislators and electing people who agree with their view that the country is on the fast track to European-style socialism at the expense of a limited-government philosophy espoused by the Founding Fathers.

Since the April 15 Tea Party, Bennett said participants began contacting their congressmen but have not gotten any response.

"Our members are just bombarding our representatives with phone calls, e-mails and letters to the editors (of local newspapers). Obviously, we're not seeing a whole lot of action," he said. "They're basically ignoring us the best they can."

Bennett said that's fine because they will hear from them when they face re-election next year.

"Federal legislators aren't going to listen to us until 2010, when we can vote them out," he said.

Instead, the Tea Party movement is turning its attention to lobbying state legislatures to pass laws that exert state sovereignty as set forth in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which says that any powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution or prohibited to states, are reserved to the states. Bennett said they believe the federal government is passing more and more laws that are encroaching on individual rights, and one way to protect those rights is for states to exert their constitutional authority.

State legislatures in Texas and Montana recently passed bills asserting that any guns manufactured in those states and sold to people who intend to keep them in those states are exempt from federal gun registration, background checks, and dealer-licensing rules because no state lines are being crossed. The federal government has used the Constitution's commerce clause as the legal basis to regulate guns because they can be transported across state lines.

"The way things are going with this administration, they're getting way too big way too fast," Bennett said in regard to the Obama administration.

Critics contend the tea parties, far from being a grassroots movement, are being driven and directed by three nationwide conservative organizations, with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi derisively referring to it as an "AstroTurf" movement.

"We aren't in close contact with Karl Rove or George Bush. We just kind of chuckle" about the allegations, Bennett said, adding he does check out several like-minded Web Sites to keep abreast of what other Tea Party organizations are doing.

Bennett said critics and the national news media portray them as anti-government extremists and nuts, or worse, but that is not the case.

"We're just neighbors tired of seeing the nation go down the tubes," he said.

Others have tried to link the movement to neo-Nazis and racist skinhead organizations, and Bennett said those people are not welcome.

"I didn't see any skinheads or white supremacists at our event, and if I did, frankly, I might have punched them in the nose," he said.

Meanwhile, Tea Party sympathizers will continue to meet weekly at a local coffeeshop.

"We sit there and vent and try to figure out what to do next," he said.

tgiambroni@mojonews.com