Archive for the ‘tea parties’ Category

This article demonstrates that the Politico…

Posted: August 9, 2010 by datechguy in tea parties
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…doesn’t get the tea party movement.

The strength of the movement isn’t a national organization fund-raising, it is hundreds upon hundreds of local tea party groups running shoestring budgets.

Maybe they should consider embedding a reporter into a small local tea party group or two and just watch how it works. Maybe they would learn something.

Captain Ed gets it:

Part of the Tea Party’s charm has been its eschewing of traditional political forms, including fundraising. The “suspicion” that some cast on elements within the movement is directed towards those who may have intentions of co-opting the grassroots for traditional party power. Its bootstrap quality attracts people to the rallies even if it does leave question about the movement’s ability to survive.

Besides, there is a basic conundrum in this question. While there have been many motivations and provocations that have pushed the movement’s growth, the poor economy and the top-down policies of Democrats that have created stagnation are the most powerful. That leaves people with not much discretionary cash to donate, making it ironically a bad time to launch a massive new political organization based on grassroots fundraising.

The bottom up organization is not a bug, it’s a feature.

memeorandum thread here

A conversation with Rich Bastien: candidate for Worcester 2nd District

Posted: August 7, 2010 by datechguy in elections, local stuff, tea parties
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Rich Bastien is running in the 2nd Worcester district in the statehouse, I talked to him at the Bill Gunn Town Hall in Leominster Last week.

If his story is being repeated statewide the times they will be a changin’!

You know I keep wanting to get off of the Bainbridge topic…

Posted: August 5, 2010 by datechguy in elections, opinion/news, politics, tea parties
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…really I do, but the news of the day doesn’t allow it. Example from Ruby Slippers:

An early look at Schneller’s nominating petitions, which are still being reviewed by pa2010.com iin full, shows that Schneller couldn’t have gathered the required 4,200 signatures without help from Democrats. Schneller himself collected only about 3,200 signatures. Almost all of the remaining 4,800 signatures were gathered by registered Democrats, many of whom have clear ties to Lentz. Many of the Democrats who circulated petitions for Schneller are party insiders and activists who would surely find Schneller’s political beliefs to be distasteful at best. Schneller is a staunch conservative who has dabbled in the so-called “Birther” movement that questions President Obama’s signature.

The Tea Party has in fact endorsed republican Pat Meehan and has no interest in Schneller but as politico reports this would not have been possible without the Lentz campaign:

The Democrats who helped gather the signatures include Colleen Guiney, the chairwoman of the Swarthmore Democratic Party and a Lentz supporter; Nicholas Allred, who works for the Swarthmore College Democrats and Rocco Polidoro, among others, according to secretary of state filings.

National review calls it a stench in Pa-7. Actually this is a very old political hardball tactic, not much different than Limbaugh’s “operation chaos“.

If you are going to run for office, particularly if you are threatening the use of the Treasury as a piggy bank to buy votes of course you are going to get people using any legal tactic to stop you and you’d better be ready to fight fire with fire. Why the RNC isn’t getting Naderites on the ballot all over states like Calif and MA is actually beyond me.

memeorandum thread here

The NYT issues a correction, Breitbart does a victory dance…

Posted: August 4, 2010 by datechguy in media, tea parties
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Andrew Breitbart at Big Government notes a NYT correction that the Mainstream media has ignored:

Let’s go over that again:

* The Times is admitting that there is absolutely no evidence that any epithets were shouted at the Congressman by any member of the Tea Party.
* This correction demonstrates we have finally proven our point to the nation’s most eminent and influential liberal media organ: that Rep. Andre Carson lied when he told the AP that members of the Tea Party hurled the “N-word” 15 times during the March 20 health-care rally that took place at the U.S. Capitol.

That’s great, as far as it goes – a thorough vindication of the Tea Party — but it doesn’t go far enough.

* It’s not enough for the Times to make a correction having let that calumny sit out there unrebuked for weeks and months and then, way after the fact, issue a correction.
* It’s not enough because the Times continues to imply that something racially charged might happened on the steps of the Capitol, when we have shown conclusively, via multiple videos of the moment in question, that nothing of the sort occurred

Not bad for a “conservative propagandist” eh Chuck?

Will the media that attacked Breitbart with glee report this story? Will Cokie Roberts retract? Will George Stephanopoulos who kindly asked Media Matters Eric Boehlert for permission to show Andrew’s videos do so? How about the other papers? How about the NAACP and every commentator who mentioned it as fact during the Sherrod kerfuffle?

Not bloody likely is it?

memeorandum thread here.

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