Thread: Tea party works on manifesto

The Christian Science Monitor in yahoo news today.

By Patrik Jonsson Patrik Jonsson – Tue Feb 2, 5:10 pm ET

Atlanta – So far, the “tea party” phenomenon has ridden waves of witty protest signs – “Don’t tax me, bro” – to surprise and buck the Democratic establishment in Washington on issues from healthcare reform to the federal deficit.

But protest only goes so far. All legitimate movements need a manifesto. So now at least one group of tea partyers is turning directly to “we the people” by using technology in an unprecedented way: build a party platform from the bottom up.

Taking cues from the “Contract with America” that led to the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, a group known as Tea Party Patriots used a website to gather ideas for what they're calling the Contract from America.

Thousands of ideasAmong the thousands of ideas submitted by more than 100,000 people so far are “Drill Here, Drill Now,” “Abolish the Department of Education,” and “Congress shall not exempt themselves.” The group will ask Americans this month to start winnowing 20 ideas down to a 10- or 12-point platform. The contract will be unveiled on Tax Day, April 15.

“This is a way of taking this protest movement and turning it into a very strong reform movement,” says Ryan Hecker, a Tea Party Patriots spokesman and activist in Houston, Texas. “And I think, at the end of the day, this document will offer the biggest tent possible and … will be very broad, very bold, but yet also viable.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the architect of the first contract, told a conservative conference in New Hampshire this weekend: “The idea is to go out to the whole country and say, ‘What would you have in a contract with America to politicians?’ It’s a very interesting idea.”

After playing a role in Republican victories in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, the tea party movement still presents a challenge for incumbent Republicans as much as it does for Democrats.

Many tea partyers are politically to the right of the average Republican and most have little party loyalty. As Politico points out, “Republicans who paint tea partyers as a fringe group risk primary challenges, while those who embrace the group risk drifting too far rightward to win a general election.”

Tea party infightingIn that light, the crowd-sourced contract will shed more light on tea party priorities, but it could also play into widening fissures in the movement, evidenced at least in part by infighting over the upcoming Tea Party Convention in Nashville.

“Right now, they’re certainly against Democrats, they’re pretty often against Republicans, but they’re an oppositional force more than a party or organization that’s aiming to do anything constructive with government,” says Martin Johnson, a political scientist at the University of California in Riverside. “The other tension here is they’re going to have to become insiders if whatever they’re proposing here is going to have a deep and sustained effect on policy.”

The emerging contract is also, in many ways, the opposite of the Contract with America, which was written by party operatives in the standard Washington mold – via polls and focus groups.

University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds, author of “An Army of Davids,” calls the Contract from America “a crowd-sourced party platform … more in the nature of a contract of employment from the voters, which politicians may choose to accept or look for alternative employment.”

“It’ll be interesting to see what the intellectual differences are between what emerges out of this process and the kinds of things we saw with Contract with America,” says Professor Johnson. “Only time will tell whether this will rise beyond clever political marketing and showmanship.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100202/ts_csm/277681

First, it would have to break free from the marketing guys who produced it in the first place. So long as people like Dick Armey are pulling the strings, it's still an GOP astroturf project.

There's been a little tension here and there, as people have resisted orders. But not enough to make it a viable alternative to the republicrats.

Although Armey disputed his relation to the memo, both Rolling Stone and Talking Points Memo have verified that FreedomWorks staffers, like FreedomWorks Florida coordinator Tom Gaitens, control the Tea Party Patriots listserv that distributed the memo. Armey has gone so far as denying even knowing Gaitens, even though he has worked for FreedomWorks for years and can be seen in the last 10 seconds of this ABC News segment handing a microphone to Armey. Both MacGuffie and Armey are targeting Republican candidates like Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC) and Olympia Snowe (ME), Reps. Bob Inglis (SC) and Mark Kirk (IL), Gov. Charlie Crist (FL), and other Republicans who have strayed from rigid party-line positions.
http://lgbtnewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/1 ... uthor.html

It appears that neither the republicans nor the democrats want this out front right now. But a lot of muckrakers have been turning up all sorts of connections.

Originally Posted by The Barbarian

You should never believe anything you hear on FOX unless you have independently confirmed it.

Originally Posted by The Barbarian

The link goes to FOX. Since they promoted the "stolen emails prove warming is a hoax" fraud, and the "it's getting cooler" fraud, and the "scientists used to worry about a new ice age fraud", perhaps you can understand why I'm not taking their word for it.

Originally Posted by The Barbarian

lgbtnewsblog

lol

It's a matter of public record. The site shows Armey denying he knows the guy who works for him, who has shared a microphone with him.

BTW, If you'd prefer to hear it from the Wall Street Journal...

WASHINGTON -- AngryRenter.com looks a bit like a digital ransom note, with irregular fonts, exclamation points and big red arrows -- all emphasizing prudent renters' outrage over a proposed government bailout for irresponsible homeowners.

"It seems like America's renters may NEVER be able to afford a home," AngryRenter.com laments. The Web site urges like-minded tenants to let Congress feel their fury by signing an online petition. "We are millions of renters standing up for our rights!"

Angry they may be, but the people behind AngryRenter.com are certainly not renters. Though it purports to be a spontaneous uprising, AngryRenter.com is actually a product of an inside-the-Beltway conservative advocacy organization led by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, and publishing magnate Steve Forbes, a fellow Republican. It's a fake grass-roots effort -- what politicos call an AstroTurf campaign -- that provides a window into the sleight-of-hand ways of Washington.
[Dick Armey]

The housing crisis has sparked broad financial and economic distress. The House of Representatives responded last week by passing a bill that would provide up to $300 billion in federal insurance to help refinance troubled mortgages. President Bush has threatened to veto it, calling the measure a reward for speculators. On Thursday, key Senate Democrats and Republicans reached an agreement in principle on a compromise housing-rescue bill.

This week, officials from FreedomWorks, the organization behind the site, delivered to Senate leaders antibailout petitions signed by 44,500 people who clicked their agreement on AngryRenter.com, at least some of whom thought its grass was real.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121090164137297527.html

All P.R. and hucksterism. As the WSJ observes, Astroturf.

Watch them as they grow. The tea partiers don't want the "republicrats" to try to take over their movement. The convention in Nashville is a local idea, not a national "let's do something".
If either the democrats or the republicans misread the core intent of the movement I expect they will find themselves fighting against a people they are ill prepared to handle.

There will have to be some form of marketing no matter how one cares to look at things. Capitalism isn't a bad thing. The convention in Nashville will be held indoors... hey, it's winter. That space will cost money. They will be teaching people how to get their own movement going in their local areas through workshops held at the convention. Palin to get $100,000 to speak? So what? If the organizers see fit to energize the people through Palin that's their call. Besides, I've heard she's going to give the money back to help grow the movement anyway.

If anyone wants to "bail" (whatever that's supposed to mean) then let 'em. I don't think the movement wants anyone riding their coattails and if someone decides not to speak at a gathering then no biggy. See ya. And if the republicans on the right think they have an opportunity to capitalize then they too are in for a rude awakening. Attempts to discredit the Tea Party movement from anybody will be met by a reaction that again, the democrats or the republicans are ill prepared to deal with.

The biggest mistake the dems and the media are making is characterizing the "Tea Party" as one entity, an organization. It's not. It consists of hundreds if not thousands of small local groups and townhallers across the nation much like non-denominational churches exist but have no true hierarchy or figurehead of authority. As far as "pulling strings" goes well, nobody is pulling anyone's strings.To say someone is "pulling strings" is a misleading claim. Nobody has that many hands to hold them all. Also, everywhere the Tea Party Express went more such groups were started throughout the area. Hannity's Freedom Concerts also spawn these groups and more Freedom Concerts are scheduled for the summer. Conventions, rallies etc simply act as gathering points for a massed voice and a place to teach others to do the same. Then it's back home to the local group to continue whatever track the group is or was on.

The only way I can see for dems to fight against the people is to support a third party, the Tea Party, to pull all those small groups together into one solid organization, under one hierarchy of organized authority. In that manner they can be sure to siphon off votes away from the republican party, remain in power and continue business as usual.

a group known as Tea Party Patriots

Again, a group. It doesn't include all those local groups nationwide. Heck, I can start a group called the Tea Party Freedom Fighters, put up a website and away we go. Just so happens the Patriots may very well have a good idea in the works. If they succeed great! If not, oh well. And guess what? They'll need money which includes the tools of capitalism. Lions, tigers and bears, oh my. Since when is capitalism a bad thing for or in America? Or marketing?

Originally Posted by Pelosi

This [tea party] initiative is funded by the high end — we call call it astroturf, it’s not really a grassroots movement. It’s astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class.

astroturf?
She has no clue about how it works, how it grows, what it is or what it's about. All she sees is a republican conspiracy. She's wrong. And the Tea Partiers know it.


The bill passed today by the dems to raise the ceiling of debt by $1.9 trillion will definitely serve to enhance the people's resolve across the country.

Watch them as they grow. The tea partiers don't want the "republicrats" to try to take over their movement.

The Republicans own the movement. They started it, they funded it, and they direct what it does, as the Wall St. Journal points out.

Originally Posted by The Barbarian

Watch them as they grow. The tea partiers don't want the "republicrats" to try to take over their movement.

The Republicans own the movement. They started it, they funded it, and they direct what it does, as the Wall St. Journal points out.

No way could the republicans have conceived, nurtured and expanded a phenomenon like this. As long as dems believe that it'll roll right over top of them. If they approach the Tea Partiers as republican astrosurfing it'll serve only to encourage the people to do even more. This is the public and they are tired of being pushed. If the democrats continue to push them thinking they are opposing republicans it'll simply backfire on them.

The democrats need to recognize the true nature of this. Not properly identifying/recognizing opposition is a big mistake in any theater of conflict, debate and of course politics.
The best thing that could happen for the republicans is for the democrats not to admit this is a grassroots endeavor and find themselves fighting against the people rather than the republican party.
And yes, the republicans have something to worry about concerning some issues such as spending but the republicans have been against big government which is the core intent of the Tea Party phenomenon.

Oops. Edited the above post and you snuck yours in there.

Originally Posted by Rick W

the republicans have something to worry about concerning some issues such as spending but the republicans have been against big government which is the core intent of the Tea Party phenomenon.

Originally Posted by jasoncran

Originally Posted by Rick W

The democrats need to recognize the true nature of this. Not properly identifying/recognizing opposition is a big mistake in any theater of conflict, debate and of course politics.

no surprise , sadly they do the same with the war on terrah.

The administration needs to recognize the terrorists are fighting a holy war against any and all who don't believe as they do. These people aren't civil criminals. They are foreign combatants waging war against the US and much of the free world.

No way could the republicans have conceived, nurtured and expanded a phenomenon like this.

As the WSJ documents, they not only could, they did. They own the movement. More specifically, Dick Armey owns it. That's why he denied knowing the guy he hired to run it. They own the website, they wrote the manual on disrupting public meetings, and they call the shots. In the words of the WSJ, it's not a grassroots movement, it's an Astroturf movement.

As long as dems believe that it'll roll right over top of them.

It's already dying. The republicans, if history is any guide, will win back Congress this time around. But the cat's out of the bag on this one.