About 100 gruff and mostly-elderly conservative protesters, drawn together by a desire to give the finger to the final version of the national economic stimulus package, gathered in front of the Westlake Center in downtown Seattle Monday.

The protesters criticized government spending in the bill and said the bill was deeply committed toward feeding Democratic pet projects. All three of Washington State's Republican representatives—Reps. Dave Reichert, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and Doc Hastings—voted against the final stimulus bill.

The organizer of the protest, Keli Carender, is a righty blogger in her twenties with a teaching degree from Oxford. She spoke into a small PA and drew assenting cries from the sign-holders.

Republican protesters skewer the "porkulus" package.

"We don't want this country to go down the path to socialism!" she yelled. "Here, here!" they called back. She called the type of government intervention Obama proposes "the reason we're in this mess,"— a curious claim given that the current economic crisis is the culmination of the Bush Presidency and that administration's policy of tax cuts and smaller government.

She also said there was "a lot of money for pork, for pet projects" and that the process was "too hush-hush." A man in an Uncle Sam hat yelled at everyone to vote for Ron Paul.

Steve Beren, the Republican activist who lost the 2006 Congressional race to Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA, 7), also took to the stage to criticize the bill, which President Obama will sign today. "This is the first protest against the hope and change era, and it's right here in liberal Seattle," Beren told the crowd.

The consensus from the stage and among the protesters in the park was an uneasy feeling toward the massive government spending on many unnamed national projects and a general incredulity toward the idea that the bill will create upwards of 80,000 new jobs in the state. "Pork" was everywhere at the protest--on the signs, on the protesters' paper plates, thanks to Carender, and also on the protesters' tongues—they dub the final version of the stimulus bill the "porkulus" and criticize it strongly for, as they say, giving out money to Democratic pet projects.


For example, the Seattle Times reported that a provision in the final version of the stimulus pushed for by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) that increased the borrowing authority of the Bonneville Power Administration may not immediately lead to the sought-after amount of new jobs. A couple of protesters cited that as an example of Democratic pork in the bill.

"They're ramming things through for their liberal agenda," said Connie White, over the blast of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." White participated in the protest and said she's struggling to deal with the effects of the free-falling economy. "I'm one of the poor. I used to be middle class. But I don't want the government helping me."

Clearly the criticism of the type of projects funded in the bill is making its way to DC, because the Washington State delegation is already offering their responses to the suggestion that the stimulus money is designed to bolster pork-barrel projects.

"This bill does not have targeted earmarks or so-called 'pork projects,'" said Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA, 3) in a video  posted to his Web site. "Projects funded through this bill will be prioritized, they will be shovel ready... but there are no special pet projects for members' districts."

Apparently responding to angry letters, Sen. Cantwell's office had a similar response. "In Washington State alone, this bill will create or save an estimated 75,000 jobs over the next two years," she says in an exchange pasted onto this conservative blog.

The way the crowd at the Westlake Center listened with mostly-rapt attention to Carender's tape of a speech by Ronald Reagan, it's clear their concerns go beyond the specific projects in the bill. Carender seemed bothered most by the speed and lack of transparency of the stimulus project, which has also bugged legislators on both sides of the aisle in DC, whether because they've seen favorite provisions deleted in last-minute negotiations or worried that there was not enough time for debate.

"No one's even had any chance to read it," Carender told me before her rally. "That's not democracy. The American people just haven't had the time to agree on this."