Photos by JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Patsy Dorsett (with flag) and her husband, Jimmy Dorsett, share a laugh at the Roanoke Tea Party's rally Thursday at Elmwood Park. The group's second tax day rally drew about 500 people.

Roanoke Tea Party President Chip Tarbutton says the group has about 1,400 members, and about a third have paid the annual dues of $25.

JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

John Herndon (from left) listens to a speaker with his sons, Zach, 8, and J.T., 11, during the Roanoke Tea Party celebration Thursday in Elmwood Park.

The Roanoke Tea Party marked its first anniversary with a raucous rally in Elmwood Park that carried the mix of political anger, showmanship and good old-fashioned American populism that's become the movement's trademark.

But beyond the spectacle, the party's leaders seek something more tangible than attention. They want results at the ballot box.

"We really needed to find the right people," said Greg Aldridge, the Roanoke Tea Party's director of public relations. "It's about the principles and not the party, or even the person unless the person wholeheartedly supports the principles. That's where our focus is now."

Those principles -- low taxes, limited regulations on markets, a focus on entrepreneurship, personal and economic freedoms, and an abiding belief in the U.S. Constitution -- have attracted about 1,400 members to the local chapter, said Roanoke Tea Party President Chip Tarbutton. About a third of those have paid the annual dues of $25, he said.

The Roanoke Tea Party grew out of a rally at the Roanoke River last year that took place as part of a national movement. Participants complained they were "Taxed Enough Already" with a Colonial theme that hearkened back to the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

On Thursday, the movement celebrated its second tax day with another series of tea parties around Virginia and the nation. In Roanoke, about 500 people attended the Elmwood Park tea party, according to organizers.

Tarbutton said he attended last year's river rally, then expressed interest in helping on the group's Facebook page. Within a few months he became president of the emerging organization.

"It's a true grass-roots movement when you can just walk in and become president six months later," Tarbutton said.

Of late, the group has started to accelerate its activities, raising money and taking a closer look at upcoming elections.

The Roanoke Tea Party endorsed its first candidate for elected office earlier this month. Mike Powell is one of three Republicans and seven candidates running for office, but he's the only one who received the nod. He's also, not coincidentally, the only candidate who unequivocally committed to not raising taxes under any circumstances.

Powell appeared at the Elmwood Park rally, where he decried the city council's recent vote to raise the sales tax on prepared foods from 10 to 12 cents per dollar, with the revenue dedicated to public schools.

Powell said he's already found a number of places to cut government spending so as to fully fund public schools without raising taxes. His ideas include closing three of the city's seven libraries and selling the buildings to private buyers; selling the City Market Building to a private buyer; selling the Countryside Golf Course property; and eliminating layers of middle management in city government.

Next year's General Assembly elections loom even larger on the Roanoke Tea Party's radar screen. Aldridge noted that all 140 seats will be up for grabs: "We would like to see a tea party candidate majority in Richmond."

That may, he said, include officials who already occupy seats there.

"We're for anybody who can stand up for the principles all the time," Aldridge said. "Ninety percent, 80 percent isn't good enough ... We can't come to accommodations somewhere in the middle from what we believe and what someone else believes."

Both Aldridge and Tarbutton expressed wariness, however, at the Republican Party's courting of the tea party. Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, for example, has appeared at a number of national tea party functions.

During a trip to Roanoke earlier this month, former Virginia Gov. and U.S. Sen. George Allen cited the tea party's energy as a reason to be excited about politics, and he made appearances at multiple rallies in the state on Thursday. Virginia House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, who is among the Republicans who have filed to run against Democratic incumbent Rep. Rick Boucher in the 9th Congressional District, was among the speakers at the rally in Elmwood Park.

Tarbutton, however, said the Republican embrace is "a symptom of the fact that the Republican brand is damaged, and they don't know how to rehabilitate it."

"If there are 19 people at the Roanoke city [Republican] mass meeting, and we consistently bring 200 people to an informal meeting at the bowling alley, if I was a Republican I'd be concerned about that, too," he said.

Aldridge said he's not quite sold on the partnership, though. "If a party gets involved in helping us with that, that's great, but we're not beholden to any political party," Aldridge said. "We're going to find the right candidates wherever they come from, and we're going to get them into office."