Coats meets with White County tea party

MONTICELLO, Ind. (WLFI) - The White County Tea Party Patriots group held a special meeting Friday evening, hoping to shed light on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Coats' plans, should he be elected.

Coats was introduced by Congressman Steve Buyer.

"What is really the threat? The threat is that you have captured the identity of what it means to be an American," Buyer said, to cheers from tea party attendees.

The White County Tea Party patriots heard what Republican candidate Dan Coats had to say.

"This is not America," he said. "This is not the American we grew up in. This is not the America our parents inherited, came here legally."

It wasn't all smiles and applause. Some attendees tried to ask the tough questions.

"You said you want gun control left to the states," one man said. "But let's look back for a minute to the 1991 Biden-Thurman gun control act. That was an anti-gun vote. 1993, the Brady bill. Anti-gun vote. And the Feinstein amendment: anti-gun vote. So, do you regret those votes now?"

Coats' answer was complicated.

"At the same time, at the request of the NRA, we implemented in that bill a process for instant check," said Coats.

He later expressed his support for the tea party movement.

"While I hope there's an affiliation, and there will be an affiliation, because we're on the same page in terms of what's wrong with our country and what we need to do to correct it. But it's Republicans' responsibility to live up to their commitments," Coats said.

The activists say he'll find out if that's the case, come November 2.