Sen. Mark Pryor and Rep. Vic Snyder, both Arkansas Democrats, weighed in Thursday on the Tax Day Tea Party protests around the state, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Mike Wickline reports. They don’t have a whole lot to say, but I’ll give them credit for recognizing that it’s probably not a great idea to go on the attack against average people expressing their dissatisfaction with government policy.

Quick round-up of some of the news coverage from yesterday’s Tax Day Tea Party demonstrations around Arkansas. If you’ve got other links that I’m missing, send them along and I’ll update the list. My earlier post includes links to much of the blog coverage around the state, and a few photos from the Little Rock event.

Jonesboro Sun reports on the Jonesboro event. (Nearly 1,000 people—in northeast Arkansas!)

Baxter Bulletin reports on Mountain Home event. (An estimated 1,000 people—in Mountain Home!)

The City Wire reports on Forth Smith event.

Southwest Times Record reports on the Fort Smith event.

Pine Bluff Commercial reports on Pine Bluff event.

Benton County Daily Record reports on Bentonville event.

Arkansas News Bureau reports on Little Rock event.

Northwest Arkansas Times reports on Fayetteville event.

KARK/Channel 4 reports on Little Rock event.

KTHV/Channel 11 reports on Little Rock event.

KATV/Channel 7 reports on Little Rock event.

FOX 16 reports on the Little Rock event. (Video in right margin)

More here from The Arkansas Project and other state blogs.

Also, I mentioned yesterday that the guys from an organization called American Majority were looking to harness the Tea Party energy and help participants become more politically involved. If yesterday’s activities just weren’t enough for you, check out their new site www.AfterTheTeaParty.com for more information.

Just back from the Arkansas Tax Day Tea Party event at the State Capitol in Little Rock and, damn, did those guys pull it off. Crowd estimates are always a dicey proposition (this AP report smartly plays it safe and puts it at “hundreds”), but I was there about 90 minutes and a steady stream of people kept filing in. If it didn’t hit a thousand folks, I’d be surprised.

Overall, the atmosphere was fairly low-key — the speakers were spirited but not angry. Organizer Tom Cox, a local business owner, made an effort to play down the partisan politics and strike an ecumenical tone reaching out to Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians. I mean, yeah, it was mostly right-winger types, but they did make an effort to move the message beyond that. (I kept up a fairly steady stream of Twitter activity here.)

Arkansas Project contributor Rep. Dan Greenberg was the only elected official to speak, and he let loose with a fiery anti-tax speech that was well-received.

I’m still compiling some reports from around the state. I talked to one fellow who had been down at the Hot Spring event and he said they’d had 350-400 people demonstrating at the courthouse there. Breanne writes in from Russellville that 300 people attended the Tea Party event there. Dylan Ferrell twitters from Fayetteville that about 1,000 were on hand there, and Rep. Duncan Baird twitters that “hundreds” were gathering in Rogers.

I’m gonna have to cut short right now because for some reason my Internet connection is buggin’ in and out on me. Let me get that resolved and I’ll come back with more links and info.

Oh, and thanks to John Anderson at the ARCCA blog for the photos (more of which at the jump), because Arkansas Project Girlfriend (APG) spilled a Coke on our camera and it doesn’t work anymore, so I had to rely on the kindness of other bloggers for visuals.

And here’s Twittering Pax Libertas with some video from the event. The Tolbert Report has a short video clip, too.

Valerie Biendara in Fayetteville hasn’t posted yet as of this writing, but check in here at the Val’s Bien blog later tonight for a report and photos. Also no report yet from Mark Moore at Arkansas Watch in the northwest corner, but keep an eye on his blog for more, which I presume is coming soon. (Both have since updated with their reports.)

Red State Conservative hit the Fort Smith Tea Party and offers a short report and photos at his blog.

Meanwhile, down in the southwest corner, it looks like there was pretty good turn-out in Texarkana based on this snapshot from blogging Rep. Steve Harrelson at Under the Dome.

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Tea Party in Little Rock, March 2009

A Friendly Liberal Interlocutor (FLI) e-mailed last night to ask about my recent flurry of blogging activity related to the Arkansas Tax Day Tea Party Protests. FLI asked if I was being paid by some national third party groups to promote the events.

The answer to which is, “Not at all.” No, strike that. The more precise answer is, “Hell, I wish, but no.”

My reasons for writing about the demonstrations in Arkansas have been twofold. First, I find them interesting—I’d seen some coverage on bigger blogs and was curious as to how the movement was shaping up in Arkansas.

Second, there’s a lot of interest among readers, and providing information on the tea parties in Arkansas has been helpful to people here who want to get involved (I know this from my search query reports, as well as from the e-mails and phone calls I’ve been getting every day from people seeking info on the events).

I should tack on that it’s been good for the blog’s traffic numbers and probably helped us pick up a few extra readers, and I’m all for that.

FLI was trafficking in the latest liberal canard that tries to derogate the Tea Party movement as an “astroturf” campaign, engineered by big political PR firms in Washington DC and abetted by FOX News. FLI offered no real evidence of the charge. Naturally.

It’s true that there are some big political organizations that have gotten involved with the movement, like Freedom Works. But that involvement has mostly been ex post facto.

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