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TOPIC: "Tea Party convention begins in Nashville" (Washington Post 2/5/10) "Rebels with a cause" (NY Post 2/5/10) "Future of.."


Diamond

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The more I read about Tea Party (as it has evolved) the more it sounds like a SOCIAL conservative movement.  I wish they had remained the large umbrella for all people especially the Center, which they no longer seem to be.

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Tea Party convention begins in Nashville


Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 5, 2010

 

NASHVILLE -- The grass-roots movement that exploded across the nation last year in revolt against President Obama's economic policies and health-care agenda reached a critical milestone Thursday as hundreds of conservative activists converged here for the start of the inaugural National Tea Party Convention.

But the first gathering of the sprawling movement, made up of hundreds of disparate "tea party" organizations, has been marred by controversy. Some high-profile speakers and activist groups have canceled their appearances in protest of alleged profiteering by the convention organizers.

Attendees have paid $549 a ticket (plus hotel and transportation) to gather for three days at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center, which critics say is out of reach for many activists. Some of the proceeds will cover former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's reported $100,000 fee for Saturday's keynote address.

Despite the fractiousness, however, officials said the event is sold out, with 600 "delegates" registered and scores more being turned away. The closing steak-and-lobster banquet, featuring Palin, has sold 1,100 tickets.

Unlike the protests and town hall rage that defined the tea party movement in its first year, the convention is designed to show that the effort is "growing up," said convention spokesman Mark Skoda, chairman of the Memphis Tea Party. There will be sessions on leadership, political philosophy and such nuts-and-bolts topics as "how to do voter registration drives," as tea party leaders try to turn grass-roots power into political gain in November's midterm elections.

"We are all very mature people -- without the pointy hats and the signs," Skoda said. "You will see people of quality and maturity to help bring this movement to a pinnacle whereby we actually change politics."

Hundreds of independent tea party groups have sprouted up nationwide over the past 12 months. Their members hold divergent political views, and their leaders have publicly quarreled over tactics. But the factions have largely united around a common cause: a don't-tread-on-me brand of fiscal conservatism and a belief that the government, first under President George W. Bush and now under Obama, has recklessly plunged deeper into debt and overstepped its constitutional powers.

"If you take 1,000 so-called tea partiers and ask them what this movement is, you'll get 1,000 different interpretations," said Mark Williams, a talk-radio host and chairman of the Tea Party Expresshttp://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/02/sarah-palin-will-rally-for-tea.html. "But they're all waving American flags and speaking out against the galloping socialist agenda."

Scores of tea party activists from as far as Hawaii arrived in Nashville on Thursday, energized by signs that their cries last year had been heard and that that political tide is turning against Obama and congressional Democrats. Someone hung a poster of Palin from a balcony overlooking a garden atrium at the Opryland complex. In the hotel lobby, a few delegates sat on luggage and read copies of the Declaration of Independence.

And outside the convention hall, entrepreneurs sold souvenirs: sterling silver tea bag necklaces ($89.99), bags of "Freedom Coffee" ($9) and T-shirts emblazoned with a bald eagle ($20).

More . . .

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Rebels with a cause

Last Updated: 11:19 AM, February 5, 2010

Posted: 2:50 AM, February 5, 2010

headshotCharles Hurt

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- No body ever said tea parties have to be pretty.

At least, not the kind of tea party gathered here in the thumping heart of gaudy country music.

These people have come from all across the nation for the first National Tea Party Convention to denounce not just President Obama and the Democrats, but Republicans and all of Washington for getting infected with the same voracious and parasitic plague spawned by big-government liberalism.

Folks here are loud and they are proud.

Already, the infant organization called Tea Party Nation has been riven by infighting, dogged by accusations of impropriety and can, at best, point to just one successful candidate

All of this has been catnip for the battalion of liberal reporters eagerly covering every disjointed mishap of this free-wheeling and unorganizable band of rebels.

But it would be wrong to think tea partiers have not had any successes.

Indeed, they alone are responsible for killing the Democratic government health-care scheme.

Tea partiers sounded the alarm and stormed town-hall meetings.

It was only after the spontaneous, rogue wave got rolling that Republicans woke up and answered the call.

Naturally, at a tea party like this, any fine china is going to get broken.

And if there is a party that has too much fine china, it's the GOP.

Tea partiers have saved their most ferocious attacks for those in the Republican establishment for allowing the "conservative" party to fall under the spell of bigger government.

They are wrenching the mantle of conservatism from the undeserving hands of the GOP and making them earn it back.

"

Link

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 5th of February 2010 02:13:41 PM

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Diamond

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RE: "Tea Party convention begins in Nashville" (Washington Post 2/5/10) "Rebels with a cause" (NY Post 2/5/10)
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What's the Future of the Tea Party?

By CBS Radio News correspondent Steve Kathan, reporting from Nashville, Tenn.

[snip]

[] when talk turns to the possibility of a third party, a Tea Party, that's when people in the movement seem to get queasy. Tea Partiers almost unanimously say it's not their goal. Something that is organized and national seems the very antithesis of what they're about -- being grass roots, staying local, more states rights, and less federal government. (Emphasis added)

[snip]

Many intend to use their energy to try to impact the midterm elections this fall. In fact, some disaffected Republicans are here, looking to run as Independents with Tea Party backing.

Peyton Lumpkin, hoping to unseat Republican Rep. Ron Paul in Texas, is handing out business cards to anyone who will take one. He even hopes to meet Sarah Palin in Nashville, and gain an endorsement.
(AP)
And at this convention without a real leader, Palin seems to be willing to step into the vacuum. When she speaks here Saturday night to close the convention, rock star treatment and adulation are sure to be all around. [snip] (Emphasis added)

But the Tea Partiers say while they may like the former Alaska governor, they're content without a leader. They like being rebels with a cause, who answer to no one. (Emphasis added)

After all of their noisy outdoor protests, they've come inside this weekend in Nashville. One of the organizers says the movement is "growing up." But if adulthood means a new national political "organization", it seems most of these folks would rather remain adolescents with attitude. (Emphasis added)
More . . .

"



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Tea Party Convention Seems a Very Genteel Affair

Time.com
FILE - In this April 15, 2009, file photo, about 4,000 people gathered on theAP – FILE - In this April 15, 2009, file photo, about 4,000 people gathered on the south steps of the Oklahoma …

"You're from the mountains of North Carolina? We have a second home in the mountains of North Carolina," effused Herselie DuValle Hendrix, a retired personnel manager from Crestview, Florida while standing online Thursday to register for the first National Tea PartyConvention. And right there, you knew that this was no ordinary gathering of grassroots activists.

 

The convention in Nashville has taken a beating for more than a month from other Tea Party groups and some Republican leaders for charging a $549 registration fee plus airfare and hotel. Two groups, theAmerican Liberty Alliance and the National Precinct Alliance, are boycotting the meetings. And Reps. Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn withdrew from speaking over concerns from the House Ethics Committee about members supporting a commercial venture - a taboo under House Rules. "I spoke to Marsha yesterday and she wishes that she weren't getting mixed signals from the House Ethics Committee," says Mark Skoda, a Memphis Tea Party activist who has become the convention's unofficial spokesman. (See pictures of last year's tea party protests.)

 

Nashville Tea Party leaders Judson and Sherry Phillips, who organized the event, have made no secret that their group, Tea Party Nation, is for-profit. But they argue that any profits are given back to the cause. "I don't run around in a sack," says Skoda, in a tan sports jacket, a black turtleneck and black slacks. "It's a misnomer that in order to be a grassroots activist, you have to be a pauper."

 

Nor, apparently, do you have to be foaming at the mouth. The genteel atmosphere of the first day of the convention - which is sharing the cavernous Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center with a Sherwin Williams Paint conference and a spa-related meet-up of ladies called "Wisdom Workshops" - was a far cry from the angry, raucous crowds usually associated with Tea Party protests. The only signs were one enormous photo of Sarah Palin toted by a fan and advertisements at a booth selling silver and precious stone tea bag pendants for $89.99. And certainly, one must have some means to attend the convention. Located next to the Grand Ole Opry arena and miles of outlet shops, the resort features five restaurants, a spa and 47 acres of buildings and botanical gardens all encased under domed glass; there's even a river walk and a "show-boat" tour. Basic rooms start at $149 a night for parking-lot views plus $25 a day for parking. (See pictures of tea party protest signs.)

 

Talk on the registration line ranged from frustration at having to postpone retirement because of the economic downturn to the care and training of horses. Attendees were mostly white and older; there were more women than men. Some were Republicans, more were Independents. To a person they loved Sarah Palin. A couple were even Democrats. "We're been good friends with [Democratic Louisana Senator] Mary Landrieu for years," says Glen Williams, 73. He and his wife JoAnn left their cattle ranch in Winsboro, Louisiana to attend the convention. "But what she's done with health care," says JoAnn, shaking her head, "now we're gonna have to work against her and we're here to learn how."

 

Dawn Adams, an office manager from Norwich, New York, got involved in the Tea Party movement last spring. She wants to see it grow to hold both Republicans and Democrats accountable to the principles of small government, though she doesn't think the movement should start a political party of its own. "I'm here to get together with other Tea Party Groups," she says, toying with a golden cross around her neck. "We want to learn from one another to see what we can do. We want to take back this country from those who are robbing it blind."

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100205/us_time/08599196040800

________________________________________________________________________

I laughed out loud when I read "A couple were even Democrats".  The reporters are either lying, minimizing the truth for propaganda, or have no idea how dumb they are.

There is another possibility, a word might be missing. "A couple 'thousand' were even Democrats".  It's time to let the media know that there are millions of us democrats against this government and obama.  GO PUMAS!



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Diamond

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Destiny, The TPN - the organization and the conference in Tennessee sounds to be highly conservative, on both fiscal and social scale. This concerns me.

As to the two people - "friends of Mary Landrieu" - they have not heard Mary Landrieu's defense in the pit of the Senate house yesterday. If they did, they would be campaigning for her. I was really moved by Landrieu's fact-laden defense of her position and her challenging Republicans to come forward and discuss with her in person. Many of the segments got coverage, including on Hannity lastnight; I hope it gets more coverage. Let us not forget that Louisiana went through hell with Katrina and that was in fact a factor in the numbers she had shared.  Mary Landrieu is up for re-election in 2014.


-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 5th of February 2010 07:34:28 PM

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Diamond

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"

'Tea party' movement: Who are they and what do they want?

Of all the protest signs at all the rallies and town-hall meetings where people gathered last year to object to Washington's plans to save the US economy and reform healthcare, this hand-lettered one is memorable: "You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out."

That's the "tea party" movement in a nutshell.

The left paints the movement as a largely white and middle-class mob – and as including kooks who equate President Obama with Joseph Stalin.

There's some truth to that view. But where some see a bunch of white people standing in the way of progress, others see a growing expression of dissatisfaction with what former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) calls the "neomonarchists."

Ahead of the Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville, Tenn., slated for Feb. 4-6, here's a look at the tea party movement – its birth, its leadership, and its aspirations.

When – and why – was the tea party movement born?

CNBC editor Rick Santelli's on-air "rant" last February about a proposed mortgage bailout is widely considered to be the "big bang" moment for the birth of the movement.

A few days later, a couple of conservative foot soldiers – John O'Hara of the Heartland Institute and J.P. Freire, then of The American Spectator – wondered if there were a way to harness Mr. Santelli's frustration.

"You know what would be funny?" Mr. Freire mused to Mr. O'Hara, leading into a discussion that would become so much more than talk.

The pair organized "A New American Tea Party" rally outside the White House on Feb. 27, according to O'Hara's book about the movement. Six weeks later (around tax day), about 500,000 people took to the streets in small, medium, and large protests from San Francisco to Atlanta. Today, says O'Hara in a phone interview, "there are absolutely hundreds" of local and state tea party organizations.

Is the tea party a real populist movement or a front for big business?

No single person leads the tea party movement. Sympathizers and role players include conservative politicians Sarah Palin and Dick Armey, antitax crusader Grover Norquist, online organizer Eric Odom of the American Liberty Alliance, and media personalities such as talk radio's Mark Williams and Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

But unheralded operatives, such as Brendan Steinhauser, campaign director for FreedomWorks and author of "The Conservative Revolution," created the backbone of the movement, establishing websites and Facebook pages that would become populated with fed-up voters.

Critics say it is being funded or co-opted by entrenched conservative powers like FreedomWorks, which recruits volunteers to lobby for smaller government and lower taxes. The Washington Post has reported that the tea party movement is, through FreedomWorks, tied to corporations like MetLife, Philip Morris, and "foundations controlled by the archconservative Scaife family."

"Nobody is saying that the passion is manufactured," says Chris Harris at MediaMatters, a media watchdog group on the left. "But partisan and pro-­business interests … [are] using people's real passion in a way that protesters aren't meaning."

Tea partyers, however, say the amateur-hour feel of their movement proves it's a true grass-roots uprising. "You can't simultaneously call the movement fractured and incompetent and a vast right-wing conspiracy," says O'Hara.

What do tea partyers want?

The movement, in its essence, is about safeguarding individual liberty, cutting taxes, and ending bailouts for business while the American taxpayer gets burdened with more public debt. It is fueled by concern that the United States under Mr. Obama is becoming a European-style social democracy where individual initiative is sapped by the needs of the collective.

"The issue is no longer tea tariffs and imperial rule, but bailouts and handouts, stimulus in the face of deficits, cap and trade [on carbon emissions], universal healthcare … dictated against the will and interest of the people, and at the peril of … the nation as a whole" leading to "an inevitable blow-back in a battle over America's constitutional principles," writes O'Hara in "A New American Tea Party," which hit bookstores this month.

Is the tea party affiliated with the Republican Party?

Certainly more Republicans than Democrats show up at tea party events. But the movement's aim is to fight profligate spending by both parties in Washington. (GOP chairman Michael Steele was notably refused a spot on the speaking roster at a Chicago tea party event last year.)

In some ways, the tea party movement poses less of a challenge to Democrats than to Republicans, who must weigh the potential gains and pitfalls of courting far-right tea partyers against those of courting middle America. To what extent the tea party movement is middle America is the big question – one that coming elections will help answer.

What has the tea party movement achieved so far?

It appears to be winning the image war, for one. Forty-one percent of American adults have a positive view of the tea party, compared with 35 percent for the Democrats and 28 percent for the GOP, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Tea partyers did transform the healthcare reform debate, some analysts say, after activists stormed town-hall meetings last summer.

Moreover, decisions by Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd and Byron Dorgan not to run for reelection this year is an acknowledgment that they probably would have faced a tea-party-inspired populist backlash at the polls, say tea party watchers.

In Massachusetts, tea party organizers helped to funnel money and manpower to state Sen. Scott Brown's successful bid for the late Ted Kennedy's seat in the US Senate. The upset victory, wrote conservative columnist Mary Katharine Ham, shows that "Democrats fooled themselves into believing the town-hall/tea party caricature and ignored the feelings of real Americans."

What role do tea party activists envision playing in the 2010 elections?

For a template, look to an emerging showdown in Florida between Gov. Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio over a US Senate seat. Tea partyers are backing Mr. Rubio and making a horse race out of a GOP primary that the popular Mr. Crist should have strolled through.

"The genie has been let out of the bottle," says Robert Watson, a political scientist at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla

How will the tea party convention advance or hurt the movement?

Recent convention developments have some tea party activists worried the event could tarnish the movement. The decision by two of the convention's key speakers, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R) of Minn. and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R) of Tenn., to pull out is giving Americans a glimpse of the internecine fighting in the tea party movement.

Some are also raising questions about convention expenses and its upscale lobster dinner, saying they contradict the movement's thrifty image and bolster arguments that the convention is a GOP ruse to raise millions.

Those who oppose the convention also question the cult of personality around Sarah Palin, the convention's headline speaker, and say it's the people who should be speaking to politicians, not the other way around.

Still, for many the controversy only proves the tea partyers are a grass roots movement with no central authority, and it's creating a forum for just the kind of healthy debate necessary to shape a stronger and more influential movement.

"

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Democracy needs defending - SOS Hillary Clinton, Sept 8, 2010
Democracy is more than just elections - SOS Hillary Clinton, Oct 28, 2010

Madam Secretary Blog at ForeignPolicy.com
Project Vote Smart - Stay informed and engaged!


Diamond

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New Tea Party PAC: Can it raise $10 million for midterm revolt?

Tea Party Nation announced at its first convention Friday that it’s forming a political action committee to help fund, train, and guide upstart campaigns across the country. It won’t be the first, or likely the last.

By Patrik Jonsson Staff writer / February 5, 2010

Nashville, Tenn.

With a vow to “take away the mystery of campaigns,” organizers of the first-ever Tea Party Convention followed up Friday with the announcement of a new political action committee that would work to elect "tea party"-style candidates in as many as 20 national races this fall.

It won’t be the first such endeavor since the millions-strong "tea party" movement first flooded onto the streets after CNBC reporter Rick Santelli’s much-publicized “rant” against a proposed government mortgage bailout a year ago.

For example, the Tea Party Express PAC spent $285,000 on Scott Brown’s race in Massachusetts. His victory bolstered the fortunes of the tea party movement by breaking the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, putting much of the Democratic agenda, including healthcare reform, in jeopardy. Moreover, there are literally dozens of smaller tea party PACs from Tennessee to California working to raise money for local tea party candidates.

Such PACs are expected to play a role in dozens of upcoming congressional elections in Florida, Kentucky, Arizona, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and several other states.

Tea party looking for corporate donations

The US Supreme Court’s recent decision to scale back part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms could also come to play a role. Tea party organizers gathered in Nashville, Tenn., say corporations are welcome to donate.

The establishment of various tea-party-related campaign funds is part of a rush by genuine organizers, K Street lobbyists, established party operatives, and even hucksters to cash in on the tea party moniker – a criticism that has been leveled from both outside and inside the movement against Tea Party Nation, the for-profit group that’s bringing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to Nashville for a speech Saturday night.

“I think the tea party movement has largely descended into ego and quest for purpose for individuals at the expense of what the tea party movement started out to be,” RedState.com’s Erick Erickson, an influential conservative columnist based in Georgia, wrote recently, adding, “I think this national tea party convention smells scammy.”

Tea Party Nation spokesman Mark Skoda, who will head the nonprofit Ensuring Liberty Corp. and oversee the new PAC, unwittingly played into that skepticism Friday when he told reporters at a press conference that his PAC would bring new levels of transparency to the political process – and then refused to name the five other board members. (He said he’d announce their names next week.) Mr. Skoda also said he may financially benefit for work he does for the PAC. (Emphasis added)


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Mark Skoda, a talk radio host who helped organize the National Tea Party Convention speaks during a news conference in Nashville, Friday. Skoda announced the creation of the Ensuring Liberty Corp., and an affiliated political action committee aimed at electing up to 20 candidates this fall. (Photo: Ed Reinke/AP)

Republican 'astroturf'?

The other major PAC, Tea Party Express, has been criticized by groups such as the American Liberty Alliance for resembling a Republican “astroturf” organization – using the tea party’s populist appeal to push a partisan GOP agenda. (See also the court fight in Florida over the tea party name.)

To be sure, antisocialist and pro-states’ rights activists like Skoda and Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, a Nashville lawyer, have found in the tea party movement a broad platform to help resist the progressive Democratic agenda in Washington while pushing basic tenets of fiscal responsibility, smaller government, and national security. (Emphasis added)

How wide and deep-pocketed that appeal is, the organizers promise, will be apparent via a comprehensive website where donors can track the Ensuring Liberty PAC’s efforts down to the dollar. Skoda believes the PAC will raise $10 million this year. (Emphasis added)

“We’ve been called racists and Nazis, but we’re comfortable with what we’re doing,” Skoda says. “Our government has got to stop not listening. The majority is not being heard.”

More . . .
====================================================

Again, sounds
- ultra conservative
- money making machinery

The SCOTUS decision has come out just in time for this PAC, it would seem.

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 5th of February 2010 07:45:50 PM

__________________
Democracy needs defending - SOS Hillary Clinton, Sept 8, 2010
Democracy is more than just elections - SOS Hillary Clinton, Oct 28, 2010

Madam Secretary Blog at ForeignPolicy.com
Project Vote Smart - Stay informed and engaged!
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