From Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, on his time at the 9/12 Tea Party in Quincy (H/T Quincy News):

QUINCY WRAPUP: I’ve been involved with a lot of events over my life, from civil rights protests to rock concerts to science fiction conventions, and I’ve never been involved with an event that ran with such well-oiled efficiency. I was going to say “ruthless efficiency,” but of course it was cheerful, considerate Midwestern efficiency and not ruthless in the least. The Quincy folks were charming hosts, and threw a dinner party for us last night where all the food was homemade, and delicious.

I wasn’t able to be there, but everything I’ve heard has been very positive, and I’m not surprised.  I know it’s considered silly to think your hometown is better than other places (although no sillier than thinking your town is worse than other places, which seems much more common around here), but there really does seem to be something special about the Quincy area.

I first noticed this in 1993, when Harry Smith of CBS News was here to cover the flood.  When he got back to NYC, he nearly got choked up when talking about the way the people here came together and worked to save the levees and each other’s homes and property.  He wasn’t saying this in Quincy on local TV, like a rock star shouting out “It’s great to be in [your town here] tonight, you guys rock the hardest!” He was saying it to his national audience, and really seemed to mean it when he said he’d never seen anything like it.

And now Glenn Reynolds, another guy who’s been all over the place, singles Quincy out as something special.  Maybe it really is.  I know we’ve got our share of crime, corruption, poverty, and so on, so it’s not like life is perfect here.  But it’s pretty darn good.  And when something happens that gives people a chance to come together and work against a common threat, whether it be a flood or out-of-control government spending, the people here really shine, rising to the occasion in a positive way.

Enough gushing from me.  More from Reynolds:

One interesting note: I’ve said this before, but those in the GOP who think that the Tea Party movement is for their benefit need to think again. Roger Stone spoke, and while nobody had anything against him in particular, several people told me that they thought the GOP was trying to co-opt the Tea Party Movement, and they weren’t happy about that. My advice to the GOP — and, for that matter, to those Democrats who care — is to try to find a way to address the Tea Party crowd’s interests, bearing in mind that if you don’t they’re just as happy to throw Republicans out of office as Democrats.

That’s true; the attempts to paint the Tea Party crowd as a Republican gang are simply false.  I’m sure many voted Republican in the last election, but that doesn’t mean they were happy about it.  They’re fed up with outrageous spending, and wary of the taxes or borrowing (and future taxes) that will be necessary to pay for it, so they’re opposing the people in power who are doing it, who are mostly Democrats at the moment.  There weren’t Tea Parties under Bush because while he spent a lot, it didn’t get crazy until the last year when he was on the way out, and we felt like we were rich enough to afford more then.  Obama has taken Bush’s spending policies and shifted them into overdrive and then switched on the nitrous.  We’re looking at 4-8 years more of this; it’s no surprise that people are getting upset about it, regardless of party.

If the Democratic party would reverse its positions on abortion and guns (or at least moderate them halfway) and adopt a more fiscally responsible position than the GOP, it could get a lot of votes from the kind of people who are going to Tea Parties.

One last quote:

But it probably doesn’t matter. Based on the level of organization, commitment, and sheer likability I saw this weekend, the folks from Quincy are going to wind up ruling the world anyway . . . .

I think he’s onto something….

Seriously, though, I hear a lot from Quincyans about how bad Quincy is, how there’s nothing to do, people are racist, whatever. It’s nice to hear an objective opinion once in a while that says we’re actually a pretty good bunch of folks.