Author: David Weigel

In an op-ed for USA Today that makes the arguments that Tea Party Convention organizers want out there — while broadcasting that the event has become a near-farce — Sarah Palin sticks up for the event.

The nature of the Tea Party movement means there may never be a “perfectly orchestrated” event: Democracy in action doesn’t come with a manual. But we must not get caught up in the politics or the controversies that some hope will distract from the heart of the movement. The focus must remain on our ideas and beliefs, and on supporting those ideas and beliefs however we can.

Palin also makes some news, announcing a speech at the kickoff of Tea Party Express III — in Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) hometown — and at an April Tea Party event in Boston.

The National Organization for Marriage, fresh off a fairly successful 2009, is asking members to demand that Congress passes a bill forcing a District of Columbia referendum on the city’s new gay marriage rights.

The email:

Dear Friend of Marriage,

Breaking news from Washington . . . .

9 U.S. Senators have agreed to co-sponsor a bill that would guarantee the right of DC residents to vote on same-sex marriage.

The bill will be introduced shortly and will complement a similar bill introduced in the House in January.  The House bill is HR4430, and I’ll keep you posted when the Senate Bill is introduced and assigned a number.

The next few days are crucial as we meet with legislators and seek support on Capitol Hill! We need your help right now.

Use this link to send an email to your Senators and Congressman. Tell them you want them to join as co-sponsors of the DC Marriage Initiative bill / HR4430, and even more importantly, push to ensure that the bill gets a vote on the Senate and House floors.

Sending Your Letter
The 9 Senate co-sponsors are Senators Robert Bennett (UT), Sam Brownback (KS), Jim Bunning (KY), John Cornyn (TX), Mike Enzi (WY), James Inhofe (OK), Pat Roberts (KS), David Vitter (LA), and Roger Wicker (MS).  The 2 House co-sponsors are Representatives Jason Chaffetz (UT) and Jim Jordan (OH).

When you use the link above to send your email message, you’ll see two letters. If your senator or congressman is one of the existing co-sponsors to the bill, they will receive the “Letter for Co-Sponsors.” Otherwise, your senators and congressman will receive the “Letter for All Others.”  Either way, your letter will be going to your own elected officials in Washington.  Please take a moment to personalize your letter to let your representatives in Washington know how important this issue is.

Your Voice Makes a Difference!
We face an uphill battle, and the next few days are extremely important as we gather support in Congress. NOM and Stand4MarriageDC are in meetings almost daily with various House and Senate offices, and we need your support. Your legislators need to hear not just from us, but from you — their own constituents who care about this important issue.

The Senate leadership just wants this issue to go away, and will do whatever they can to bury it in committee. That’s why every Senator needs to hear from people in his or her own state, urging him to stand up for the voting rights of DC residents.

An out-of-control city council tried to do an end run around the DC Charter, refusing to recognize the rights of DC voters to file an initiative petition on marriage. Regardless of where your representatives stand on same-sex marriage, tell them that we ought not stand for this sort of government abuse against the residents of our nation’s capital.

Tell your Senators and Congressman you want them to publicly stand for marriage and civil rights by co-sponsoring the DC Marriage Initiative Bill / HR4430. Tell them how important this issue is both for the future of marriage and for the rights of everyday citizens trying to stand up against a government machine.

Then tell them you want them to champion this issue, push for a vote, and not let Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid bury it in some subcommittee!

Please click here to send your message to Congress today!

Then forward this message to friends and family all across the country! Together we can stand up for DC voters and make sure they have a chance to be heard on marriage!

Good catch by John Aravosis, resurrecting Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2006 position on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: “[T]he day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to.”

That’s not quite McCain’s position today, as military leaders inform him that, yes, they want to change the policy.

Markos Moulitsas and Research 2000 have attempted to take it, and the results are up now. Among them:

– Only 24 percent of Republicans say that ACORN definitely did not “steal the 2008 election.” Twenty-one percent say the community group did; 55 percent are unsure.

– Thirty-one percent of Republicans say President Obama is “a racist who hates white people.” Thirty-six percent disagree; the rest aren’t sure.

– Twenty-three percent of Republicans want their states to secede from the union. In the South, it’s 33 percent.

– Only eight percent of Republicans say that “openly gay men and women [should] be allowed to teach in public schools.”

In every case, the more anti-Obama, conservative results come from Republicans in the South.

Ben Wetmore, the 28-year-old conservative activist whom James O’Keefe called a “mentor,” has stayed out of the headlines since it was revealed that he housed O’Keefe and the other participants in the bungled sting of Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) office. When I reached Wetmore by phone yesterday, he politely declined to talk about the situation until it settled down.

Still, the Wetmore-O’Keefe friendship was, in gonzo journalism terms, a productive one. In 2008, after O’Keefe had left the Leadership Institute, the two men recorded hidden camera video of themselves going to three state offices in Massachusetts, applying for marriage licenses, openly admitting that they were straight men who wanted to get married to take advantage of the benefits.

O’KEEFE: We probably plan on doing this for about a year and then..
CLERK: And then, divorcing.
O’KEEFE: Right.
CLERK: Yeah.
WETMORE: Yeah.

The closest thing O’Keefe and Wetmore got to an ACORN moment was a Worcester, Mass., clerk admitting that she wasn’t telling a supervisor about their meeting because she didn’t want to get in trouble. Because the gag didn’t go any further, the stunt got little media attention. Fourteen months later, it reveals just how close O’Keefe and Wetmore were.

Here’s the video:

Ben Smith has a smart preview of today’s primaries in Illinois, and an analysis of which candidates voter anger will help. One storyline that looks likely to be written tonight: the defeat, two weeks after Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, of “Tea Party” candidates challenging establishment Republicans. Senate candidate Pat Hughes, heavily backed by Tea Party activists ever since Republican frontrunner Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) voted for cap-and-trade legislation, is trailing by at least 20 points.

But gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrzejewski is the more compelling Tea Party candidate, and the one whose final vote total will be watched for some metric of hype versus on-the-ground support. Under the radar, Andrzejewski has capitalized on his good looks, ethnic base and conservative rhetoric to become a Tea Party rock star. “There’s a particular candidate that’s being described as the Scott Brown of this contest,” said Rush Limbaugh of Andrzejewski on the Friday episode of his show. Jim Hoft, the influential Gateway Pundit blogger, has played a key role in convincing the conservative blogosphere that Andrzejwski had a chance and that polls showed him surging.

The most uniquely Tea Party-ish aspect of Andrzejwski’s bid has been his courting of, and endorsement by, Lech Walesa, the former Polish rebel-turned-president, a hero of the Cold War who was memorably dismissive when President Barack Obama joined him as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The Walesa endorsement was a slightly surreal affair.

Some lower-level Democratic consultants have launched what I think is the first anti-Tea Party campaign at TheTeaPartyIsOver.org. There’s not much at the website, operated by the American Public Policy Committee, except attacks on conservatives linking their extremism to Tea Party politics.

Randy Hultgren has taken right-wing positions on spending, health care, abortion, and gay rights. He sponsored a bill to remove protections from discrimination because of sexual orientation, and claims the health care bill “will kill people.” Call Randy at 630.549.0139 and tell him to reject the dangerous ideas of the Tea Party.

WorldNetDaily, doing some sleuthing, finds that the group shares office space with Democratic attorney Joseph Sandler.

Markos Moulitsas has started to leak the results of a comprehensive Research 2000 poll of Republicans, asking for their take on a series of hot-button issues. Thirty-nine percent of Republicans, for example, want Obama to be impeached. Thirty-one percent want a ban on contraception.

We haven’t seen the full poll results yet, but I’ve been shown an early list of the questions that Research 2000 cycled through. Some of the wording may have been changed since.

QUESTION: Should Barack Obama be impeached?
QUESTION: Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States?
QUESTION: Do you think Barack Obama shows too much deference to foreign leaders?
QUESTION: Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?
QUESTION: Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?
QUESTION: Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Barack Obama?
QUESTION: Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?
QUESTION: Should Congress make it easier for workers to form and join labor unions?
QUESTION: Would you support or oppose giving illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and learn English?
QUESTION: Should homosexuals be allowed to serve in the military?
QUESTION: Should homosexuals be allowed to marry?
QUESTION: Should homosexual couples receive any state or federal benefits?
QUESTION: Should homosexuals be allowed to teach in public schools?
QUESTION: Should sex education be taught in public schools?
QUESTION: Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world?
QUESTION: Are marriages equal partnerships, or are men the leaders of their households?
QUESTION: Should contraceptive use be outlawed?
QUESTION: Do you believe the birth control pill is abortion?
QUESTION: Do you consider abortion to be murder?
QUESTION: Do you support the death penalty?
QUESTION: Should women work outside the home?
QUESTION: Do you believe that the only way for an individual to go to heaven is through Jesus Christ, or can one make it to heaven through another faith?

On the front page of The Washington Post, Jerry Markon has an excellent, lengthy look at the conservative movement’s newfound — or at least newly invigorated — online organizing. RedState, for example, has long pushed news favorable to candidates liked by the site’s readers, and has long included fundraising appeals, but as Markon points out, an email list launched one year ago quickly swelled from 498 to 70,000 subscribers.

The reception of the story on the right? Not bad, but not altogether thankful. Tim Graham of the Media Research Center took to the Newsbusters blog to attack the story for its nomenclature.

While the Post can do an entire story on a left-wing group like Code Pink and use one liberal label, the most noticeable tic in the Markon story is how many times the word “conservative” appears, and not counting the headline — forty-six.

Two polls – Rasmussen and a private poll by Tony Fabrizo — show Marco Rubio gaining a double-digit lead on Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.) in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate. The incredible aspect of Rubio’s steady progress is that it has come without paid TV media or a fundraising advantage. Blog buzz, Twitter, Facebook, talk radio, local activism fueled by Tea Parties — all of that has turned Rubio into the sudden frontrunner for a race he was encouraged to drop out of.

Opponents of Rand Paul, the frontrunner in Kentucky’s GOP primary for U.S. Senate, are pretty effectively spinning his press release announcing the endorsement of “political icon and conservative leader Sarah Palin.” Paul’s opponent, Trey Grayson, is casting doubt on the endorsement, and Palin has not put out a statement. And TWI’s Rachel Hartman, digging into FEC filings, has not seen a Paul donation yet from SarahPAC — records only go through December 31, 2009.

One reason to take Rand Paul seriously: Palin has spoken in the past about her admiration for his father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). Here’s a video from before Palin was chosen as the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee — it’s been ripped off several times on YouTube, and I’ll happily give credit to the interviewer if she emails me.

Paul’s press release:

National political icon and conservative leader Sarah Palin has endorsed Dr. Rand Paul in his bid for United States Senate from Kentucky. The Paul campaign has received a generous donation from Governor Palin’s PAC.

Sarah Palin has clearly seen that Rand Paul supports smaller, constitutional government and is taking the fight to the career politicians and will shake up the tax and spend crowd in Washington D.C.

“Governor Palin is providing tremendous leadership as the Tea Party movement and constitutional conservatives strive to take our country back,” Rand said.

“Sarah Palin is a giant in American politics. I am proud to receive her support.”

“I’m trying to go to Washington to fight to lower taxes and spending, and for term limits and balanced budgets. I will go to protect the lives of our unborn children,” Rand said.

“I will strive to capitalize on the support of Governor Palin and so many others to go to Washington and fight for liberty and limited government and put an end to the current climate of insider politics, runaway deficits and out-of-control growth of government.”

Sarah Palin’s endorsement is another major success in a long list of achievements for the Paul campaign. Dr. Paul was recently identified as one of the five most important candidates to support by Dick Armey, Freedom Works and the National Tea Party Movement. Dr. Paul has also received endorsements from Concerned Women for America, Gun Owners of America, Steve Forbes and RedState.com,

Recent independent polls show Rand holding a double digit lead in the Republican primary and large leads over either Democratic opponent. Rand Paul has raised over $1.8 million dollars, including over $650,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Scott Brown’s 11th-hour fundraising surge was one of the great stories of the Massachusetts special election, a watershed moment when the conservative netroots proved they could hit the “donate” button as fast as liberals could. But Casey Ross discovered another angle to that story: the late burst of donations included nearly half a million dollars from financial company employees worried about Democrats’ regulatory ambitions.

Martin Gruss, owner of a West Palm Beach, Fla., investment firm, said he gave $2,400 to Brown because he vehemently disagrees with the policies being pursued by Obama and his economic aides.

… “People like me are scouring the country for conservative candidates,’’ said John Mumford, a California venture capitalist who gave the maximum $2,400 contribution to Brown four days before the election. “What’s going on in Washington is against everything I believe in, which is small government, balanced budgets, and support for free enterprise.’’

“They have no real understanding of the business implications of their actions,’’ he said, adding that limits on trading securities would undermine the position of the United States as the world’s financial capital.

That’s not the kind of talk (remember, money is speech) likely to make Democrats optimistic about financial reform.

Sam Stein nabs a memo written by Frank Luntz — whose influence among Republican strategists is as strong as ever, given his presence at the House GOP retreat — telling conservatives how they can talk about financial reform while killing the reforms on the table right now. The gist, according to Luntz, is that supermajorities of voters doubt that Washington can effectively regulate business, and blame the crisis on a combination of human stupidity and Washington stumbling — not on Wall Street.

Here, for example, is Luntz’s proof that voters are going to be skeptical of Washington reform.

Here’s the proof that the “spending and stimulus” have further damaged trust in Washington:

And here’s the data that suggests that only a third of people blame Wall Street for the economic mess.

You could hardly find a better endorsement of Tea Party rhetoric. The Tea Parties began, remember, when CNBC’s Rick Santelli ranted against the idea that the government should save the homes of “losers” who shouldn’t have bought them anyway.

Four AP reporters (get set for a conservative attack on how many resources the organization devoted to this story) dig into the timeline of the James O’Keefe et al. sting of Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) office.

It was a big weekend for pushback from Tea Party groups that have been accused of exploiting their fellow activists. Not long after Tea Party Nation blasted its critics, singer Lloyd Marcus sent out this email under the Tea Party Express banner. The bulk of the email is after the jump; a long series of videos from Tea Parties have been cut out.

The other day I received an email from a friend who had heard some false and malicious attacks against the Tea Party Express.  He was concerned and wrote me to ask about it because I’ve been a part of the Tea Party Express since its inception last year.

When I was talking to the rest of our team about this email I found out that most everyone else had been approached by someone asking them similar questions about a whole range of rumors, accusations, allegations, smears and mischaracterizations of what we at the Tea Party Express are supposedly about.

Seems our friends in the liberal blogs and media outlets (including MSNBC, Media Matters, Huffington Post, TPM Muckracker, Mother Jones, and others) have been doing all sorts of attack hit pieces criticizing the tea party movement as a whole and the Tea Party Express in particular.

And the odd part is, these attacks against the Tea Party Express have made me smile.  You see, I realized that if the left wing bloggers and activists who like what Obama, Pelosi & Reid are doing weren’t worried about us in the tea party movement, they’d just ignore us.  The fact that the attacks have been stepped up against this movement as a whole the past several weeks shows me the impact we are making.

Here’s what I wrote to my team members at Tea Party Express in response to the attacks:

“You know TPX has become a powerful force when people take shots at you. GREAT WORK! (smile) All the best, Lloyd”

So I tell you what I’m going to do.  I’m going to send you an email in the next few days that will debunk all of the crazy attacks and smears being launched against us.

But first, instead of allowing our critics to define us, I thought I should start by showing you what we at the Tea Party Express are really all about.  We have a record upon which our promises and pledges to you, our supporters, can be evaluated.

I hope you will also please – FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS.

I believe actions our speak louder than words of our critics.  Here are just a few of the actions that we at the Tea Party Express have undertaken thanks to your help and support.  This is our record of who we are, and we’re proud of it, and I can tell you that I won’t let anyone even try to rewrite this history!  Please share these videos  with your friends, so they too can learn what the Tea Party Express is all about.

The conservative celebrity and economist argues for clemency for James O’Keefe because, well, “when was the last time you read about federal charges against a liberal reporter for going undercover?” He contrasts the treatment of O’Keefe — one of four activists currently being investigated for shady behavior in the local office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) — with the treatment of the New Black Panther Party. He does so while mangling a lot of facts.

“During the last Presidential election,”  Stein writes, “a gang of men calling themselves Black Panthers showed up at a polling place in Michigan.” It was in Philadelphia. “They threatened any voter who did not vote for Barack Obama.” They did their stupid visibility outside a heavily Democratic polling place that went 596-13 for Obama.

“Even though it is an unequivocal violation of voting rights laws, it was decided by Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, not to prosecute the case at all.” The decision was made far below Holder, by Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli.

Special attention must be paid to Stein’s smarmy closing lines:

Mr. Holder, here is a line from the civil rights struggle I worked in before you were born: We are not afraid. And we’re not going away.

Holder was born in 1951 — he’s only seven years younger than Stein. This rush to portray the attorney general as an overzealous, race-obsessed boy who needs to be disciplined reveals more about Stein than it does about O’Keefe.

Members of the Tea Party Nation e-mail list received an astonishing e-mail this afternoon, naming, rebutting, and attacking their critics. Sherry Phillips’s email is posted after the jump.

Judson and I have stayed silent in the face of intense media scrutiny and attacks by former members.  As a wife and a mother, I have stood by my husband and family and stayed strong in the face of many baseless accusations and criticism.  We have refrained from responding to many of the attacks that have been thrown at us from other “Tea Party” groups, in the belief we did not want to spread the divisions that are already hurting this movement even though that does not seem to be the consideration of some others involved in this movement.  Because of the many TPN members’ requests
and encouragement, I have decided to provide comment about Tea Party Nation and the National Tea Party Convention. We will stay silent no longer. I hope my comments and the issues I deal with in this note will provide some clarity.

American Liberty Alliance – Eric Odom’s American Liberty Alliance
is a for profit company that takes donations.  We agreed to a sponsorship exchange where ALA would be a gold sponsor of the convention and we would be a gold sponsor of the Tax Day Tea Party.  Shortly after agreeing to this exchange,  Eric emailed Judson and me privately saying he was supportive of us and this convention and did not want to pull out, because he thinks this convention is going to be a huge success; however, some his “influential supporters”  were not happy about ALA’s participation
in the convention and asked Eric to withdraw.

American Majority – After stating in the beginning they wanted
to co-sponsor the convention, they never answered repeated emails sent asking them for confirmation of their attendance. They did not promote the convention and did not put the convention on their calendar.  In fact Ned Ryun spent 5 minutes in an interview on Fox News talking about the Tea Party movement and did not mention the convention at all.  Meanwhile, another training organization contacted us asking if they could become a sponsor and if they could do a breakout session.  We gladly accepted and gave them American Majority’s spots.  On January 6, Ned’s assistant sent an email stating she was making travel arrangements for them to come and participate in the convention and asked when did we have their breakouts scheduled.  I told her because of their non-response,
we gave American Majority’s slots to this other organization. They
then requested that their logo be removed from the Convention website.  We complied with their request.

Tea Party Express – This group has been very supportive of us.  They intended to do a small tour, culminating in an event Saturday afternoon prior to the banquet.  Because of their efforts in the Scott Brown race and their intent to go after Harry Reid in Nevada, they simply cannot make the trip.  We received a very nice email from them explaining their actions and restating their invitation to join them when they kick off their next tour in March.  We will be there.  We fully support their endeavors as they open their next tour in Nevada this spring.

Campaign for Liberty – We actively sought out Campaign for Liberty
as a sponsor of this convention.  We were contacted several weeks ago by the TN Director for CFL who wanted to co-sponsor the convention and I put him in touch with our Sponsorship Chair.  We have not heard anything from them since.

Former Tea Party Nation Members – Several former members were
unanimously banned from our site for reasons running the gamut from antagonism to passing on confidential information.  These members have been blogging, as well as discussing their association with liberal media outlets and conspiring with each other to, “Take TPN and this convention down”.

In one of their more egregious statements a former member wrote that Judson stated, “I want to make a million dollars from this movement.”  Judson has never made this statement.  He has stated on numerous occasions that he would like TPN to have a million members all fighting for the cause of conservatism!

Bill Hemrick – Mr. Hemrick made a business loan to Tea Party
Nation at a commercial interest rate.  This loan has been paid back in full.  That is the full extent of any relationship we have had with Mr. Hemrick.

Congressmen Bachmann and Blackburn – Both Congresswomen have large targets on their backs and are rightfully concerned about backlash they will receive from the left-leaning Democrat controlled House Ethics Committee.  Because of the complexity of the Ethics Code regarding House Representatives, we have no doubt the Democrats would have found something in that code to cause them problems once the convention was over.  We were also informed by Rep. Bachmann that both were being told two different things by the House Ethics Committee in regard to their participation.  This of course sent up red flags to everyone involved.  We do not blame either Congressman for their decision to withdraw from the convention and maintain a strong relationship with them both.

Tea Party Nation – Last February after Judson held one of the
first tea parties in the country in downtown Nashville, he came up with the idea for a social networking site for conservatives. Judson and I created Tea Party Nation.  We formed the corporation. We financed the corporation. We bought the domain name teapartynation.com, we purchased the servers and we pay for the
monthly expenses.  We are a C-Corp and do not accept donations.  Tea Party Nation charges nothing to be a member and is run entirely by volunteers.  Recently, we have been able to start charging for advertising on the site to help defray the costs of running the site.

As TPN has stated since its formation, we are not a non-profit.  We prefer to offer free membership to conservative patriots so they may participate in the political process of restoring this nation to its founding principles without financial burdens, hardships or roadblocks to prevent their participation.  Members are then able to choose their own way to spend their money without any involvement from TPN.

PayPal Account – We are using a business PayPal account for the convention.  An email address is required to notify a contact when
payment is received and we are using my TPN email account at [email protected] as that notification email address.  All money in that account is transferred directly into the TPN business bank account.

We fully expect to break even during this event.  We may even make
a few thousand dollars to cover local operating costs of TPN.
We have made the best of a tight budget and scaled back the price of
attending this convention as much as we could without putting TPN into bankruptcy.  The convention is sold out and we have a waiting list of over five hundred people.  We never did this to make us rich or
famous. Quite the contrary, we are patriots who love our country, our members and the people who are coming to Nashville to attend this great event.

For all of you who will be attending, we look forward to meeting you
this upcoming week and we thank everyone for the support and patriotism in this fight against liberalism.  God bless you all and I thank you for your prayers and words of encouragement.

Peter Roff, an influential, under-the-radar conservative pundit, has made the most put-together argument I’ve seen for something you’ll hear more conservatives talk about: a 2012 primary challenge to President Obama from Hillary Clinton. The sourcing is ingeniously specious: “The ongoing decline in the president’s approval ratings has more than a few Democrats concerned,” and “chatter has increased in recent days about Clinton leaving the cabinet sometime in the first term, likely over some matter of principle, so that she can position herself to challenge Obama in 2012.” Chatter from who? It doesn’t matter! It led the front page of Drudge for 12 hours!

I don’t think you can overstate the conservative obsession with the Clintons — not even now that President Obama has become just as edifying an opponent. In 2007, I wrote this piece on how conservatives were betting that Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity would save them in 2008. And now there’s some betting that Clinton’s ambition will bloody the Democrats enough to save the GOP in 2012. It’s baseless, but I don’t expect it to fade for at least two years.

The butt of many jokes since Indiana RNC committeeman James Bopp introduced it last year, the RNC 10-point test for candidates has been scrapped. That’s according to CNN’s Peter Hamby, reporting from the RNC meeting in Hawaii.