Tea Party leader: Dems no involved with effort

Tea Party leader: Dems not involved with effort

But activists say they still need more info

BY DAWSON BELL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

REESE -- For a guy trying to launch a political party, Mark Steffek is awfully publicity shy.

For weeks after he was identified in mid-May as the contact for the mysterious group circulating petitions to qualify the Tea Party for Michigan's ballot, Steffek declined to return phone calls from the news media, including the Free Press. Recently, he removed his photo from his Facebook page and replaced it with a Red Wings logo.

Many of his neighbors, including some who said they see him regularly, said this week that they had no idea he was involved in tea party activities.

On Friday, Steffek finally answered a few questions. He claimed he is an authentic part of the movement to rein in big government, and said he undertook the organizing effort to protect his children and grandchildren.

But he wouldn't identify the source of tens of thousands of dollars used to fund the petition drive, any of the other people involved or any candidates the party might place on the ballot. Steffek described speculation that he'd been put up to it by Democrats hoping to siphon the votes of tea party sympathizers away from Republicans as "ridiculous."

Neither the Democratic Party nor the UAW was involved, he said.

But Tamyra Murray, an organizer for the Frankenmuth Tea Party, said Friday that it will take more than Steffek's assertion to convince her. Murray said she has attended dozens of tea party activities in the last 18 months and never laid eyes on him, despite living less than 10 miles away.

Murray said she finds it hard to believe Steffek's claim that he decided to organize a political party because he was "looking for something to do" over the long winter.

"That's just not believable," she said. "You don't just wake up one day and say, 'I'm going to start a political party.' "

Most activists in the movement that emerged last year in opposition to what they view as bloated, unresponsive government have so far rejected the idea of forming a third party to challenge the Democrats and Republicans, focusing instead on influencing the outcome of (mostly GOP) primary elections.

Steffek's effort caught many of the more visible tea party activists in Michigan off guard and wondering where he got the resources to hire a petition firm to collect signatures.

On Friday, Steffek would only say the organizing effort was funded by donations. He scoffed at the suggestion that his was a phony Tea Party.

"They say they've never heard of me. Well, I've never heard of them. I've been too busy," he said.

Steffek said he never considered himself a Democrat and has been an independent voter his entire adult life.

He said he was motivated by concern over deficit spending and government debt, but is also opposed to free-trade agreements like NAFTA that he believes cost American jobs.

He said he gave former U.S. Rep. David Bonior $200 when Bonior ran for governor in 2002. Bonior, who was one of the most liberal members of the House, was a major NAFTA opponent.

Steffek said he found an elections specialist, Lansing attorney Mike Hodge, on the Internet.

Hodge was legal counsel to former Democratic Gov. James Blanchard and has worked regularly for the state Democratic Party.

But Steffek said he had no help, financial or otherwise, from the Democratic Party or from the UAW.

He said no date has been set for a convention to nominate candidates to run on the Tea Party slate. The nominations have to be submitted to the secretary of state by Aug. 3.

Contact DAWSON BELL: 517-372-8661 or dbell@freepress.com