Tea Party Exchange gets mixed reaction

List of businesses participating in Tea Party discounts

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By Nathan Waggenspack and John Nolan, Staff Writers Updated 1:05 AM Saturday, August 14, 2010

DAYTON — The Tea Party Exchange, the Dayton Tea Party’s program that seeks to link conservative consumers with businesses with like-minded owners to support the party’s cause, is getting mixed reactions from the public.

Mixing their businesses with politics has caused a backlash against some of the companies that joined the exchange, which gives a discount to Tea Party members with a TPX-Great American card and prompts the business to donate five percent of the sale to the local Tea Party chapter.

Ann Wightman, of Washington Twp., said when she found out about the Tea Party Exchange (TPX) she wanted to know what businesses were involved so she could avoid them.

“I disagree with what the Tea Party stands for,” she said Friday, Aug. 13. “Just as they would like to advertise their political ideas, I will choose not to shop there and advertise mine.”

Wightman said she has no problem with businesses taking a political stance, but that if she disagrees with that position, she won’t patronize that business.

At least three businesses on the TPX list contacted by the Dayton Daily News asked not to be mentioned in an article Friday about the program.

Washington Twp. businessman Donald Hutchinson, who established the TPX, asked that another business be removed because, he said, it had been listed in error on the TPX Web site.

Still, four other businesses called him Friday about joining the exchange, Hutchinson said. He charges participating businesses an annual membership fee of $150 to cover administrative, marketing and Web-hosting expenses, he said.

Businesses that contribute can support the Tea Party’s principles of free markets, limited government and fiscal responsibility, Hutchinson said.

Susan Essex, a Realtor in Troy, is a Tea Party supporter, and wanted to help the cause.

“You need to believe in what you believe in, you cannot waiver in that,” Essex said. “I don’t want to lose my clients, but I don’t want to waver in my beliefs or my thoughts.”

Mark Owens, Montgomery County Democratic Party chairman, said he will not specifically avoid the stores but he thinks it is bad business practice to mix in politics.

“I’m not sure why you would give discounts to a certain group for their beliefs and not help out other people,” he said.

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