They came. They made noise. They partied like it was 1773.

What they accomplished is problematic, at least so far.

But for several hours Wednesday, a crowd estimated at about 5,000 gathered on Capitol Park's west lawn to protest federal bailout programs and state tax increases, and vent general frustration with what they see as governance that runs from paternalistic to profligate.

"We just want to support our Constitution and get back to the limited government that the country was founded on," said Mark Chiorino, a 47-year-old firefighter who came from Auburn with his wife, April.

"It's not just the taxes, it's the need to go back to a limited government. You know, California is a perfect example of a state that has kind of gone overboard."

The "Tax Day Tea Party" gathering was one of an estimated 802 similar demonstrations around the country, sponsored by a group calling itself the Tea Party Movement.

Billed as a modern version of the Dec. 13, 1773, incident in which American colonists dumped 342 cases of tea into Boston Harbor to protest a British tax, Wednesday's event was part political protest, part ideological revival and part party.

"A lot of people around the country say we're nothing but a bunch of right-wing crazy protesters," said Mark Meckler, a Nevada County attorney who was the chief organizer of the Sacramento rally. "(But) you need to know that we in the great middle of America, we are the majority, and we're tired of being treated like some fringe minority."

In addition to the "right-wing-crazy" accusation, critics of the rallies also labeled them a tool of the right-leaning Fox News.

One of the network's business news anchors, Neil Cavuto, broadcast live from the Capitol event, the announcement of which drew lusty cheers from the crowd.

The events had also been poohpoohed by Democrats as an effort by the Republican Party to begin battling again for the hearts and minds of Americans, after it was soundly thumped in last November's election.

But while the rhetorical tenor of the rally's speakers – who ranged from a pack of local radio talk show hosts to a man dressed as a tar-and-feathers victim – was decidedly conservative, it was much more populist than partisan.

Meckler ripped into state GOP chairman Ron Nehring for declining to help organize Wednesday's rally. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, ended his speech with a pitch to help recall Assemblyman Anthony Adams, a Hesperia Republican who voted for the tax hike package approved by the Legislature in February.

And talk show personality Michael Reagan, son of that most revered of modern Republican icons, former President Ronald Reagan, chided the GOP for contributing to what he termed the failure of the federal government to lead.

"If my party had done their job when they had the White House, the House and the Senate, we probably would not be in this mess today," he said.

(Notwithstanding all the GOP bashing, the National Republican Congressional Committee sent out an e-mailed fundraising pitch on Tuesday, tied directly to the rallies.)

If the crowd wasn't exactly demanding the restoration of Republicans to power, it was clearly unhappy with the current Democratic regime.

Scores of placards decried the policies of President Barack Obama ("One Big Awful Mistake America") or the mental acuity of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-S.F., ("Pelosi is a Moron.")

The most specific target of the collective speakers' wrath was California Proposition 1A on the May 19 ballot, which would establish a flexible spending limit and extend $16 billion worth of tax increases.

"There's a lot of politicians in there (the Capitol) that tell us 1A is a budget cap," said Meckler. "The truth is that 1A is going to take $16 billion out of your pockets."

But for all the political heat generated, the crowd was remarkably civilized, particularly in light of the fact that only two porta-potties had been set up at the site.

Although the crowd appeared to be overwhelmingly white, all ages were represented, from a toddler in a stroller holding a sign that read "Don't Spend My Future," to 87-year-old Robert Arlen, a retired autoworker from Fremont.

"What is going on in this country right now is frightening," Arlen said. "I lived through the Great Depression … and we tried socialism then under (President Franklin) Roosevelt, and it didn't work then and it won't work under this new president either."

While Arlen said he was a veteran of many demonstrations, Tanner was attending his first rally. Tanner, a 3-year-old golden retriever sporting a sign that read "bark if you love tax cuts," was at the rally because his companion, Laura Wrobel of Rocklin, had the other end of his leash.

Wrobel said she was troubled by passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a.k.a. the stimulus, by a Congress she said had not read the act's fine print, and which was riddled with pork.

Attending his first rally was John Ratzenberger, a 62-year-old actor best known for his role as know-it-all mailman Cliff Clavin on the television show "Cheers."

"I worked hard and I went for the American dream and I did OK," he told the crowd. "But now I'm confused … why does the government want to take my money and give it to people who don't work?"

It was a rhetorical question, which the masses answered with chants of "USA! USA!"

Wednesday's event was actually Laura Todd's second "tea party." Todd, a self-described self-employed Sacramento resident who was clutching a large stuffed pig that represented government pork, said she had attended a much more modest rally on the Capitol steps in February.

"It struck a nerve with me then," she said. "I knew it was going to strike a nerve with a lot of other people ... I think this movement is evolving. I don't know exactly where it's going to go. but I know it's addressing things that are important, and we have to talk about them."

Call Steve Wiegand, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 321-1076.