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Posts Tagged ‘Sarah Palin’

Tea Party Kicks off Tour as 20,000+ Rally in Searchlight, Nevada as Reid Supporters Attack Throwing Eggs; UPDATE: AP Admits Huge Crowd, Omits Reports of Reid Supporters Attacks; Breitbart testimony added; UPDATE #2: Politico reports 20,000 in attendance, debunks Palin smear, reports claims of Reid supporter attacks; 2008 Obama Violent Quotes Added

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

Over 10,000 Tea Party supporters rally in Searchlight, Nevada

Building upon a tide of rising of discontent throughout America regarding the recent historical passage of the gigantic Democratic comprehensive health reform plan known as Obamacare, tea party activists held a rally in the hometown of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) today with at least 20,000 gathering to hear headline speaker Sarah Palin.  In what many are terming a “conservative Woodstock,” Sarah Palin spoke about the need for the federal government to cut its bloated budget and to rollback the massive Obamacare package, a desire held by many across America and perhaps everyone in the crowd today judging by the cheers. Palin’s key moment came when discussing Democratic control of Congress, when she stated that Americans should say in November 2010 that “You’re Fired”.

Many Supporters of Sarah Palin were amongst the tea party folks rallying in Searchlight, Nevada todayThe establishment media, of course, is working to delegitimize and smear the tea party movement in the wake of the passage of Obamacare, with the AP clearly putting out this narrative before today’s rally:

Organizers predict as many as 10,000 people could come to tiny Searchlight, the hardscrabble former mining town where the Senate Democratic leader grew up and owns a home. But a light turnout or disruptions could lead to questions about the emerging movements’ credibility and direction.
….
The rally that’s been called a conservative Woodstock takes place just days after the historic health care vote that ushered in near-universal medical coverage and divided Congress and the nation.

The vote was followed by reports of threats and vandalism aimed at some Washington lawmakers, mostly Democrats who supported the new law.

Police don’t expect problems but the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is sending dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers to patrol the crowd.

The AP, of course, fails to mention that the senior Jewish politician in America, GOP House whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), had a bullet hit one of his Virginia offices (as confirmed by Richmond, VA police).  Considering the massive turnout today, clearly exceeding the estimates of organizers, Americans now know that the tea party is far from finished and perhaps still building strength after the passage of Obamacare. Live reporting from the scene on cable reports that the main highway into tiny Searchlight, Nevada is hopelessly jammed with other folks trying to make it to the rally while a mile long line to enter the rally area, as all available parking on the scene is occupied and folks are parking in town and having tour buses drop them off near the rally and heading in on foot.

Despite the establishment media’s claims that the tea partiers are an violent, angry mob, today’s event was marred only by attacks from supporters of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), as about 35 Reid supporters lined the street leading into the rally and threw eggs at the passing traffic, including the Tea Party Express buses. Such conduct is clearly a threat to the safety of those traveling on the street and a sign of the extremism rising on the left, despite what the media may report. Further, other Reid supporters actually attacked conservative media personality Andrew Breitbart, throwing eggs at him and threats of violence according to those on the scene:

Supporters of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid staged a counter-protest today in Searchlight, Nevada, the Senator’s hometown. Reid supporters gathered just down the road from the launching point of the Tea Party Express tour, and when Breitbart happened upon them, he was met with threats of violence. At least one protester threw an egg at Brietbart, missing him. Eggs were also thrown at the Tea Party Express bus.

We expect the establishment media to ignore these violent acts and threats of violence by Reid supporters directed at tea party activists, as such incidents do not fit into the establishment media’s narrative of tea party “extremism”.   At a minimum, the media should demand answers about what Reid campaign officials organized the 35 Reid supporters to show up on the side of the street and whether the highly dangerous tossing of eggs into a motorway was sanctioned by such officials, and if not sanctioned, what did Reid’s people do to stop it, if anything.

Indeed, the level of enthusiasm necessary to pack a town of only 500 registered voters like Searchlight with 10’s of thousands of people is unlike anything seen in America in many decades.   Considering that President Obama’s approval has again begun to decline, dipping back under 50% after a brief post-Obamacare bounce, the conventional wisdom of the establishment media and all Democratic politicians that the passage of Obamacare would lead to a substantial jump in Democratic fortunes appears to be collapsing, one rally and one poll at a time.

UPDATE: The Associated Press this evening filed a story about the tea party rally today in Searchlight, Nevada, and as expected, did not report the fact that Reid supporters pelted passing cars and tea party buses with eggs from the side of the motorway and threatened Andrew Breitbart, as documented by Breitbart’s radio appearance later in the day. Considering the AP’s reporting of the phantom racial slurs in DC that no one in America has any video or audio evidence actually occurred, despite the presence of many network cameras and folks’ video phones that day in DC, it is unsurprising that the AP refuses to report the Reid supporters’ conduct. Amazingly, the AP did report on the Reid supporters’ presence in the area, but did not report on their activities of throwing eggs at passing vehicles or their threats of violence towards conservative activist Andrew Breitbart:

Reid supporters set up a hospitality tent Saturday in the parking lot of a Searchlight casino, about a mile from the tea party rally. The Senate leader planned to spend part of the day at a new shooting range in Las Vegas with National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

Luis Salvador, 55, an unemployed fire sprinkler fitter, drove down from Las Vegas to support Reid, who he said has done a lot for the state and doesn’t deserve the protest brought to his hometown.

“You don’t come to a man’s house and start creating a ruckus,” said Salvador, a registered independent. He and several others taped signs saying “Nevada Needs Harry Reid” to the side of a truck near the highway that runs through town.

Another Reid supporter, Judy Hill, 62, said she doesn’t understand the hatred of Reid. The longtime Democrat from Searchlight said she thinks people just don’t know the man she calls a friend.

“They listen to the rhetoric. I think he’s very misunderstood and under-appreciated,” she said.

It is beyond question that this AP reporter, Michael R. Blood, had access to the internet and could have, and probably did, read the release of the tea party organizers which reported the violent activities by the Reid supporters. The AP’s Blood could have easily talked to Breitbart or listened to his radio appearance, or talked to Levi Russell, who issued the release for the Tea Party Express describing the violent conduct of the Reid supporters, and then interviewed others who were on the tea party bus that was attacked. However, the AP’s Blood chose not to pursue this angle of the story, as it would have been damaging to the Democratic Party, which the AP has sworn undying fealty to in all of its reporting, apparently.

Sadly, this cover up of the violent activities and rhetoric of the Democratic Reid supporters, as testified to by Andrew Breitbart, is just another chapter in the biased and slanted reporting of the establishment media, explicitly demonstrating the double-standard employed by the establishment media of always downplaying or omitting any untoward activities by liberals while inventing or exaggerating any untoward activities by conservatives. Indeed, reporter Blood seems somewhat perplexed that there was no violence amongst the tea party’s 10,000+ crowd, saying that the event “appeared peaceful“.

Andrew Breitbart, seen here in a more relaxed setting, today was reportedly threatened with violence by Reid supporters near the tea party rally

Further, the AP’s Blood makes a curious point in reporting on Breitbart’s speech:

Conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart disputed accounts that tea party activists in Washington shouted racial epithets at black members of Congress amid the health care debate, although he didn’t provide any evidence.

“I know you’re not a racist group,” he told the crowd.

Unmentioned by the AP’s Blood is that the Democrats did not “provide any evidence” that any tea party protester “shouted racial epithets at black members of Congress” other than their own “testimony” in front of the cameras. Indeed, also unmentioned by AP’s Blood is the fact that Breitbart offered a $10,000.00 donation to the United Negro College Fund if anyone could produce any audio or video evidence of the use of any racial epithets:

If we let them get away with Saturday’s stunt — using the imagery of the Civil Rights era and hurtful lies to cast aspersions upon the tea party whole — then they really will have won the day.

It’s time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up. Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.

And surely if those cameras did not capture such abhorrence, then someone from the mainstream media — those who printed and broadcast his assertions without any reasonable questioning or investigation — must themselves surely have it on camera. Of course we already know they don’t. If they did, you’d have seen it by now.

THOUSANDS OF TIMES.

Rep. Lewis, if you can’t do that, I’ll give him a backup plan: a lie detector test. If you provide verifiable video evidence showing that a single racist epithet was hurled as you walked among the tea partiers, or you pass a simple lie detector test, I will provide a $10K check to the United Negro College Fund.

Is James Carville, senior Democratic strategist, behind the recent campaign to smear tea party supporters as racists, despite the lack of any video or audio evidence of any slurs of any kind?

Of course, no such evidence has been forthcoming or produced because, in all likelihood, the claims of racial taunts by Democrats were simply spurious claims made to distract the American public from the content of the massive Obamacare package and to smear those who oppose it. Recall the story a few weeks ago that Democrats were planning ways to bring down the tea party movement, by perhaps turning one of its leaders into a “mole” and smearing the rest as extremists:

Big Government has learned that Clintonistas are plotting a “push/pull” strategy. They plan to identify 7-8 national figures active in the tea party movement and engage in deep opposition research on them. If possible, they will identify one or two they can perhaps ‘turn’, either with money or threats, to create a mole in the movement. The others will be subjected to a full-on smear campaign. (Has MSNBC already been notified?)

Big Government has also learned that James Carville will head up the effort.

Obviously, there is no love lost between Obama and the Clinton machine. It may at first seem odd that Clinton would rush to Obama’s defense, but the tea party movement poses a threat far beyond the immediate goals of the Obama Administration.

The tea party movement could evolve into a new political realignment, one founded on a belief in limited government and less government interference in the economy. The Progressive agenda, which has been painstakingly built up over the last three decades, could be left in tatters.

As the Clinton’s know, “politics ain’t beanbag.” Expect the counterattack soon. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

The avalanche of Democratic claims this week of racial slurs and hysteria about “threats” appear to be the very “counterattack” of the Democrats against the tea party that was predicted by Breitbart. Nancy Pelosi and company strolled down the middle of the tea party protest hoping to get a you-tube moment of a screamed slur or even a physical confrontation – but the tea party protesters simply didn’t provide any such video moment to the Democrats. Because of this lack of evidence, the Democrats have been forced to go out on a limb and, in our view, falsely assert that slurs were made that no one managed to get a recording of, despite the rolling cameras of multiple networks and hundreds of camera phones during the walk up to Capitol Hill. It is truly a sad day in America when the establishment media reports as fact claims made by Democrats about racial slurs for purely political reasons without any evidence whatsoever to back them up.

The AP did, however, grudgingly admit that a giant crowd of tea party supporters descended on tiny Searchlight, Nevada:

At least 9,000 people streamed into tiny Searchlight, a former mining town 60 miles south of Las Vegas, bringing American flags, “Don’t Tread on Me” signs and outspoken anger toward Reid, President Barack Obama and the health care overhaul.

Organizers had said up to 10,000 people might come; around 1 p.m., police estimated the crowd was between 9,000 and 11,000.

Note that the first paragraph excerpted above, near the top of the article, uses the low estimate, and only later in the article, near the end, does the AP’s Blood admit that “police estimated the crowd was between 9,000 and 11,000” which was what organizers had hoped for. Of course, earlier in the day, before the rally, AP’s Blood had this to say, trying to set up his ability to write a hit piece on the tea party after the rally:

Organizers predict as many as 10,000 people could come to tiny Searchlight, the hardscrabble former mining town where the Senate Democratic leader grew up and owns a home. But a light turnout or disruptions could lead to questions about the emerging movements’ credibility and direction.

Of course, as Blood reported, the turnout was heavy at the rally and the rally “appeared peaceful“. One might expect Blood to write a story reporting that the tea party showed its building “credibility and relevance” after the passage of Obamacare, considering the rousing success of the rally; one might also expect the AP’s Blood to report upon the press release of the Tea Party Express claimed Reid supporters were engaged in violent acts against the passing tea party buses from the side of the motorway, throwing eggs, or the threats of violence against Breitbart. Sadly, AP’s Blood was not there to report objectively on the facts of what happened, he was there to write a hit piece on the tea party – which, fortunately, he was unable to do because of the indisputable success of the rally today.

The violent acts and threats of Reid’s supporters will now fade into the memory hole of unreported facts, despite Breitbart’s testimony, as the AP story on the rally will likely be the only mainstream media reporting to emerge from today’s rally. If tea party supporters had been the ones tossing eggs into oncoming traffic on the side of the highway, or if tea party supporters had been the ones shouting threats of violence, we can be certain that the AP’s Blood would have started and ended his story reporting those facts. All told, the biased and slanted reporting of the AP today is yet another example of the partisan and ideological nature of America’s media in the 21st century.

UPDATE #2: Politico confirmed in their midnight report that the tea party turnout was indeed massive, as they estimated 20,000 supporters were there:

“When we talk about fighting for our country, let’s clear the air right now about what it is that we’re talking about,” she told a crowd estimated by organizers at 20,000 gathered for a rally in a windswept desert lot about four miles north of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tiny hometown. “We’re not inciting violence. Don’t get sucked into the lame-stream media lies.”

Palin said “violence isn’t the answer.” She said “our vote is our arms” and encouraged activists not to be discouraged by the passage of the Democratic healthcare overhaul bill last week, but rather to channel their energies into defeating congressional Democrats who supported the legislation.

Democrats this week accused Palin of exacerbating the already tense atmosphere after last weekend’s House vote passing the overhaul by telling her followers via twitter “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” and by singling out 20 House Democrats who voted for the health care bill as targets on her website using a map with cross-hair gun sights on their districts.

The targeting phraseology is commonly used by political pros to indicate priority races, but Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) told a New York television station that Palin’s presentation was dangerous, given the context.

Even left-leaning Politico cannot stomach the Democratic strategy of claiming Sarah Palin is “inciting violence” by targeting vulnerable Democrats for electoral elimination, noting that such “targeting phraseology is commonly used by political pros to indicate priority races”. Perhaps today’s rally will be the turning point where the establishment media stops reporting the ridiculous smears of Palin and the tea partiers fed to them by Democratic strategists and instead begins to actually focus on the substance of the massive Obamacare passage the Democrats have just passed into law.

Amazingly, Politico actually reported the egg throwing at passing tea party buses by Reid supporters and the violent threats upon Breitbart:

Conservative talk show host Mark Williams, an official with the political action committee that sponsored the rally, rejected media reports of slurs directed at House Democrats during tea party rallies in Washington before Sunday’s vote, which were based on first-hand accounts from reporters and members of Congress.

“That’s a crock,” he said, alleging that when his group’s buses – emblazoned with “Tea Party Express” – drove down Searchlight’s main street, they were pelted with eggs by Reid supporters, who lined the sidewalks waving mass-produced placards saying “Welcome to Reid Country.”

Williams declared “Thuggery is a left-wing tactic. We denounce it. We will not stand for it.”

On the homepage of the Big Government site of Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, who spoke at the rally, a headline reads:  “Harry Reid Supporters Attack Tea Party Bus!… Update: Breitbart Attacked!”

Now that an establishment media source has actually reported the violent, unsafe actions by Reid supporters and their violent threats to Breitbart, perhaps the story will gain some traction. Finally, regarding the claims that the GOP engaged in the incitement of aggression or violence by tea party protesters over Obamacare, perhaps the media should take a trip into the way back machine and review these Obama quotes:

Barack Obama, June 2008: “‘If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun

Barack Obama, October 2008: “I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.

Has any Republican or tea party leader told his or her supporters to “bring a gun” to a fight with political opponents, or told his or her supporters to “argue with them and get in their face” in reference to liberals? Of course not, because if that had happened, it would be front page news in the extraordinarily biased establishment media.

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NYT Smears Tea Party and Sarah Palin, Linking Them to Terrorism and McVeigh-Era Militia Groups; UPDATED

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

NYT Columnist Frank Rich Smears the Tea Party and Sarah Palin Today, Linking Them to Terrorism and McVeigh-Era Militia Groups

The New York Times’ Frank Rich takes a stab at smearing the tea party movement this morning, claiming tea party groups have “common cause” with McVeigh-era militia groups, and concluding that Joseph Andrew Stack, the anti-capitalist/pro-communism suicide pilot, somehow demonstrates his point. These outlandish claims emanate from the Times despite recent mainstream media recognition, even by the left-leaning Associated Press, that the tea party movement is a non-violent, “antiestablishment, grass-roots network motivated by anger over the growth of government, budget-busting spending and Obama’s policies.” Here is Rich’s ridiculous smearing of the tea party movement as the latter-day successors to the militias of the McVeigh era:

It is not glib or inaccurate to invoke Oklahoma City in this context, because the acrid stench of 1995 is back in the air. Two days before Stack’s suicide mission, The Times published David Barstow’s chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. Anyone who was cognizant during the McVeigh firestorm would recognize the old warning signs re-emerging from the mists of history. The Patriot movement. “The New World Order,” with its shadowy conspiracies hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Sandpoint, Idaho. White supremacists. Militias.

Barstow confirmed what the Southern Poverty Law Center had found in its report last year: the unhinged and sometimes armed anti-government right that was thought to have vaporized after its Oklahoma apotheosis is making a comeback. And now it is finding common cause with some elements of the diverse, far-flung and still inchoate Tea Party movement. All it takes is a few self-styled “patriots” to sow havoc.

Rich’s NYT editorial then continues on with unsupportable fear mongering that the tea party’s “ideology is far more troubling than the boilerplate corporate conservatism and knee-jerk obstructionism of the anti-Obama G.O.P. Congressional minority.” Basically Rich is saying here that the GOP has no control over the tea party, and they are so crazy that their very existence is “far more troubling” than the national Republican party. While this runs counter to Pelosi’s claim of GOP control of the tea party movement in her interview on ABC’s This Week today, the hysteria in his commentary is particularly odious as the “ideology” Rich is so troubled by is simply a limited government, low spending, low tax, strong national defense point of view – hardly revolutionary ideas. It seems the real problem for Rich is that he considers the national GOP “domesticated” to some extent regarding big government policies, and therefore preferable to the explicitly anti-big government stance of the tea party movement.

It seems clear that Rich’s NYT column today comparing the tea party to terrorists and McVeigh-era militia groups and Robert Wright’s NYT column last week entitled “The First Tea Party Terrorist” are part of a coordinated push on the American left to demonize the the party as terrorist-linked extremists in the runup to the November 2010 elections. Indeed, last week reports surfaced that James Carville, a senior Clinton-era Democratic strategist (who coincidentally used the McVeigh bombing to successfully demonize Newt Gingrich while working for Clinton) is apparently pushing the strategy. One huge problem with Carville and the Democrats’ attempt to recycle the demonization strategy that was so successful for former President Clinton in 1995 is that the tea party movement is not violent nor a militia. No serious violent incidents by tea party protesters were reported despite hundreds, if not thousands, of such tea party protests occurring across America in the past year.

Accordingly, desperate for some facts to hang the Carville smear strategy on, the left has turned to suicide pilot Joseph Andrew Stack, who flew his plane into a federal building earlier this month in Austin, Texas, killing one IRS employee and wounding many others. Rich and Wright both claim that Stack was a tea partier because of his anti-IRS views, but those views seem to be created by the decades of disputes Stack had with the IRS personally, not an outside ideology of anti-government as a whole. Further, Stack’s suicide note manifesto concludes with the following two sentences in praise of Communism:

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

By all accounts, the tea party movement draws its ranks from the centrists, independents and above all, conservatives – folks who are not exactly supportive of Communism. Regardless, by omitting these comments in his column today, and following the lead of the NYT’s Robin Wright, CNN, the Washington Post and Time, Rich misrepresents Stack’s actual views as expressed by Stack in order to utilize the tragedy of Stack’s horrific suicide attack to push Carville’s political messaging. Such conduct by Rich and Wright, pushing a smear campaign against the tea party movement with very questionable facts in support, as sanctioned by the NYT editorial page, represents the worst of the establishment media.

Finally, Rich gets in a shot at Sarah Palin by concluding that her association with the tea party movement is “enough to make you wonder who is palling around with terrorists now.” Here Rich is referencing Sarah Palin’s campaign 2008 comment that Obama is “palling around with terrorists” based on Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn. Ayers and Dorn admitted engaging in terrorist acts in the 1960’s and 1970’s, while there are no tea party terrorists, despite what the NYT and James Carville would have you believe. The smear of Palin as palling around with terrorists because of her speech at the tea party convention is truly over the top, and should have never made it past the NYT’s editors. Here’s Rich’s conclusion in full:

In his Times article on the Tea Party right, Barstow profiled Pam Stout, a once apolitical Idaho retiree who cast her lot with a Tea Party group allied with Beck’s 9/12 Project, the Birch Society and the Oath Keepers, a rising militia group of veterans and former law enforcement officers who champion disregarding laws they oppose. She frets that “another civil war” may be in the offing. “I don’t see us being the ones to start it,” she told Barstow, “but I would give up my life for my country.”

Whether consciously or coincidentally, Stout was echoing Palin’s memorable final declaration during her appearance at the National Tea Party Convention earlier this month: “I will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help.” It’s enough to make you wonder who is palling around with terrorists now.

It appears from Pelosi’s “astroturf” smear today, and the two NYT editorial pieces that explicitly label tea party members as terrorists, the Carville demonization strategy is in full gear, using the tragedy of Stack’s horrific suicide attack as the “evidence” to back the terrorist smear. Considering the recent even-handed reporting by other mainstream media sources about the tea party, it will be interesting to see if the “tea partiers are terrorists” smear gains life beyond the pages of the NYT editorial page and left wing new media sites.

UPDATE: Welcome to the readers of theAtlantic.com who came over from the “Defining the Tea Party” post, thanks for the link John Hudson.  Please take a look around, leave a comment or two and let’s have a debate.  Thanks.

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Pelosi on ABC: Tea Party is “Astroturf, as Opposed to Grassroots”

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

On ABC's This Week today, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Again Attacks the Tea Party Movement as "Astroturf, as Opposed to Grassroots"

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to be reading from the summer of 2009’s talking points, smearing the tea party movement as “directed” by the GOP and “astroturf, as opposed to grassroots” this morning on ABC in remarks taped earlier this week, echoing her remarks from the summer of 2009:

And Pelosi still believes Washington Republicans are trying to quietly influence the tea party movement through well-funded, fake grassroots organizations, referred to as “astroturf.”

“The Republican Party directs a lot of what the tea party does, but not everybody in the tea party takes direction from the Republican Party,” Pelosi said. “So there was a lot of, shall we say, Astroturf, as opposed to grassroots.”

And she said she’s not worried about the threat the movement present to her party.

“We’re fully prepared to face the American people with the integrity of what we have put forth, the commitment to jobs and health care and education and a world at peace and safe for our children and with the political armed power to go with it to win those elections,” she said.

Speaker Pelosi appears to be behind the times, even in liberal circles, as while her summer 2009 “astroturf” comments were backed by the mainstream media, in 2010 the media has shifted gears and reports on the tea party movement as an authentic grassroots movement, as in this AP article covering Sarah Palin’s speech at the tea party convention a few weeks back:

Her audience waved flags and erupted in cheers during multiple standing ovations as the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee gave the keynote address Saturday at the first national convention of the “tea party” coalition. It’s an antiestablishment, grass-roots network motivated by anger over the growth of government, budget-busting spending and Obama’s policies.

Palin’s 45-minute talk was filled with her trademark folksy jokes and amounted to a pep talk for the coalition and promotion of its principles.

An AP story this morning also outlines the Pelosi claim on ABC’s This Week that the tea party movement is not an authentic grassroots movement:

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is questioning whether the conservative “tea party” coalition truly represents a grass-roots movement.

In a broadcast interview, Pelosi calls tea party voters the “astroturf” movement. She says many of those voters have good intentions but that the Republican Party has hijacked the movement for its gain.

Speaker Pelosi is also forgetting the impact the tea party movement had in pushing the GOP to victories in Virginia, New Jersey and most recently Massachusetts, all of which occurred after her original “astroturf” comments in the summer of 2009. If the tea party movement actually was just an artificial, shallow creation of the GOP, and not a true, broad-based, grassroots movement, the surge in voting for GOP candidates since the tea party emerged probably would not have occurred. As tea party activists from all around America contributed to Scott Brown’s Massachusetts Senate election campaign, and when some even made the trek to Massachusetts to work in phone banks, knock on doors and plant signs all around Massachusetts, it is unreasonable to claim such a movement is artificial and fake as the facts simply do not support the claim.

Amazingly, despite smearing them as astroturf, Pelosi also claimed that the Democrats are on the side of the tea party movement at one point in the interview as well:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes the tea party movement shares a common enemy with Democrats — the entrenched special interests that feed money into the political system.

“We share some of the views of the tea partiers in terms of the role of special interest in Washington, D.C.,” Pelosi said in a taped interview airing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “It just has to stop. And that’s why I’ve fought the special interest, whether it’s on energy, whether it’s on health insurance, whether it’s on pharmaceuticals and the rest.”

Perhaps Pelosi is not keeping up with the news, because Democratic President Barack Obama, not the GOP, made the backroom deal with Big Pharma, and others, and such backroom deals is a source of disgust to most tea party activists. Further, Obama also lined up almost all of the Fortune 500 behind his cap and trade plans, hardly evidence of Democrats fighting special interest influence. Pelosi also omits any reference to the Democratic kowtowing to unions, who after all are also special interest groups using big money in politics, and Obama most recently evidenced his undying allegiance to unions by placing a pure union political operative, SEIU boss Andy Stern, on his “bipartisan” deficit commission.

Finally, any claim that the Democrats and Obama are trying to combat special interest and big money influence was made inoperative by Obama’s appointment of Julianna Smoot as his White House Social Secretary in the wake of Desiree Rogers’ resignation in disgrace over the party crashers debacle. Julianna Smoot was the President’s chief fundraiser for Obama 2008, and as such was the main point of contact for Obama’s bundlers and big money donors. Now, as Social Secretary, Smoot is in charge of controlling access to the White House, which can only be seen as “good news for wealthy donors to President Obama’s campaign, for whom Smoot — the chief campaign fundraiser — is friend and point of contact.” Smoot also has close ties to convicted bigwig Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu as Hsu was “one of the most reliable donors from her tenure as finance chair for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.”

All told, Pelosi’s appearance today on This Week, with the renewal of the “astroturf” smear of the tea party movement, is unlikely to bolster Democratic fortunes in the short term or in the November 2010 election. While Pelosi puts on a brave face and declares the Democrats will retain their majority in the November 2010 elections, the continued smears of America’s most vibrant political movement as of today will probably move the needle in the opposite direction.

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Palin, Biden Meet Expectations in VP Debate

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

Both candidates excelled in a night of debate filled mainly with recited stump speeches that were largely unresponsive to moderator Gwen Ifill’s questioning without any major gaffes. The key question going into the debate was whether Sarah Palin could reestablish her credibility after a series of missteps in interviews. Palin clearly met that bar and avoided what could have been a support meltdown on the Republican side if she had tanked.

Biden was knowledgable and forceful in his policy discussions, especially in the foreign policy discussions. Thematically, Biden did his job by linking McCain to Bush and demonizing Bush in an effective manner. Palin survived on foreign policy issues and excelled on tax and energy issues. Thematically, Palin did her job and by reinforcing McCain’s image as a maverick and linking Obama to higher taxes, more government and a loss in Iraq. From an objective point of view, both candidates did what they set out to do and the debate was essentially a tie.

The initial pundit reaction was predictable: CNN and MSNBC called it for Obama, Fox News called it for Palin. However, even the CNN “analysts” agreed that Palin swept aside credibility questions with her performance and boosted GOP morale and any threat of Palin “dragging down” McCain was erased. Predictably again, the focus groups set up by CNN and Fox News split in their reaction. CNN/Opinion Rsearch’s instant poll shows a 51-39 Biden victory, with 84% believing Palin exceeded expectations and 64% believing Biden exceeded expectations. with 55% Fox’s text message poll went for Palin, 86-12.

As for undecided voters, CBS’s poll of undecided went to Biden, 46-24%, with 55% stating their view of Palin improved. Importantly, CBS’s poll 18% of the undecideds are now committed to Obama, while 10% of the undecideds are now committed to McCain. If this takeaway from the VP debate holds, with Obama gaining more than McCain from undecideds, the McCain campaign will continue to slide in the polls.

Regarding the impact on the presidential race, most soft McCain voters who were concerned about Palin’s recent interview performances were likely part of the 84% in CNN’s poll who believed Palin beat expectations. The question becomes how independents and conservative Democrats react to the debate over the next few days. These groups strongly dislike Bush and Palin did condemn the Bush Administration several times and talked about looking to the future instead of backward.

With the second Obama-McCain debate set for a week from now, McCain is likely to become much more aggressive attacking Obama should the House pass the bailout package passed by the Senate yesterday. McCain has a set of commercials relating to the GOP’s version of the cause of the economic crisis – failure to control Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – set to be unleashed once the House acts.

The media often talks about the great Right Wing Attack Machine, and Hillary Clinton often warned that Obama would not be able to withstand a full-on assault. Expect the GOP and third party groups to unleash “Greek fire” on Obama on both the economic crisis and his character issues (Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Marshall, ACORN, etc.) as soon as the bailout passes. The only way that McCain can win this election at this point is to return the focus to a referendum on Obama’s fitness for office instead of the quality of the Bush years.

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Can Palin Power a McCain Comeback?

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Pressures on Sarah Palin Tonight

Pressure's on Sarah Palin Tonight

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin takes on Senator Joe Biden tonight in the one and only Vice Presidential Debate in this year’s presidential campaign. The GOP ticket has much more on the line tonight than the Democratic ticket as McCain-Palin has dived in the polls ever since the economic crisis took center stage about two weeks ago. The tail of the tape favors Biden, and the public expects Biden to win by a small margin.

Tonight’s debate will probably boast the largest national television audience for any night of the campaign so far, as the first Obama-McCain debate unperformed ratings wise last Friday night. Palin has a platform to talk “over the head” of the media directly to perhaps a majority of all likely November voters. 34% of likely voters report that tonight’s debate is “very important” to their vote, with another 38% percent claiming it is “somewhat important”.

A chance to turn the tide could not come at a better moment for McCain-Palin as the situation is dire, with the public favoring Obama’s handling of the bailout and a steady slide in both national and state polling. Indeed, in mid September McCain-Palin seized a tiny one or two point lead in the national polling average, and Obama-Biden has since surged to a six point lead, with only 6-7% undecided.

Making a comeback improbable is the historical trend of voters (less than 5%) changing their choice for president after the end of September. For instance, in 2000, the defectors from Bush and Gore after September canceled each other out. In 2004, Bush received a slight net gain from defectors, about 1% of the national vote as Bush lost 2.8% of his September voters and Gore lost 4.2% of his. Even if McCain-Palin can take a net 2% of the national vote from present Obama supporters, the GOP would have to take 75-80% of the undecided vote just to tie.

Against that backdrop, Palin steps into the spotlight again tonight. The McCain campaign is relying upon Palin for a third time to revive their campaign. First, McCain used suberfuge to pick her out of the blue as VP the night after Obama’s convention speech, limiting Obama’s momentum boost. Second, Palin delivered a solid convention speech in the face of mixed expectations, partially powering McCain’s move to a small lead in mid-September.

Now, the McCain campaign has come under severe criticism for its mishandling of Palin’s press availability and overall strategy. By keeping Palin away from press scrutiny, the strategy ensured that even small mistakes with the press would be magnified and the press would dig relentlessly into her background. The media narrative has caricatured Palin in negative terms in recent weeks, epitomized by the Saturday Night Live brainless bimbo version. While many of the media accounts of Palin dirt have been debunked, polling suggests that the negative press narrative is dragging down her favorability. The media is now discussing how Palin is a net drag on the ticket.

Many of the undecided voters are moderates and centrists with no strong party affiliation. Palin will likely try to play to these undecided, independent voters tonight with a focus on her reform record and blue collar roots. A major gaffe, or even a minor one, will feed into the present narrative.

Tonight is Palin’s chance to connect with the voters directly. Nothing less than a big win tonight for Palin both in the post-debate polling and the pundits (at least a majority) will reverse the strong momentum built up by Obama during the economic crisis. For only the second time in American history, tonight a woman will take part in a general election vice presidential debate and the stakes could not be higher.

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