The Tea Party Express credited its influence on Friday in “defeating” Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak–a key target of the conservative activists who barreled into his district a day earlier to rally against him.<\/p>\n
“The surprising announcement that Congressman Bart Stupak is abandoning his campaign for reelection shows the power of the tea party movement,” the group’s political director, Bryan Shroyer, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Stupak was no longer able to hide his betrayal of conservative principles because the tea party movement was determined to educate the voters in the district,” he said.<\/p>\n
Stupak, a pro-life Democrat representing Michigan’s 1st congressional district, was under attack by the tea party movement and other conservative groups for his vote in favor of the Democratic health care legislation.<\/p>\n
“I absolutely credit the mere threat of us coming through his district,” Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams told FoxNews.com. “We put the nail in the coffin.”<\/p>\n
The Tea Party Express, one of the most visible factions of the movement, rolled into Bessemer, Mich., late Thursday to stage a rally targeting Stupak. The group also launched an aggressive ad campaign against him \u2013 with the group\u2019s political action committee, Our Country Deserves Better, pledging $250,000 in radio and T.V. ads aimed at ousting him from office.<\/p>\n
The group had planned 11 rallies in the state over the next three days, protesting Stupak’s controversial vote and calling for his swift resignation.<\/p>\n
Williams said Stupak’s announcement on Friday in no way disrupts their plans.<\/p>\n
“Now it becomes a celebration of the process and the power of the people,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Tea Party Express credited its influence on Friday in “defeating” Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak–a key target of the conservative activists who barreled into his district a day earlier to rally against him. “The surprising announcement that Congressman Bart Stupak is abandoning his campaign for reelection shows the power of the tea party movement,” the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}