Can’t Stop (i)t
By Eastan McNeal on February 8, 2010 at 8:30 AM in Current Affairs
The Tea Party Convention has political operatives shaking in their boots.
Astroturf campaigns make money for the consultants and the image managers. Organized political field operations make legends out of the professional organization directors, such Manyon M. Millican who directed the national voter identification and turnout for The Committee to RE-Elect the President (CREEP) for Nixon in 1972.
Until it becomes a formal political party and looses the quaint feel that endears the concept of a “movement” to independent voters, the National Tea Party represents what the political experts hate and fear. Active independents, with a little i.
Professionals like campaigns nicely wrapped with a bow on top. Suppress the opponent’s party. Energize your base. And campaign to the big block in the middle. The middle is easy to work. They are not getting memos from local party leaders and they make their decisions late in the campaign.
That gives the pros time to “educate” the early undecided voter; identify which ones are buying your message; re-educate the rest based on your first field results; identify again and then make sure that, on election day, you quietly turn out your Yes votes.
But what happens if these people start educating themselves before the pros get a chance to influence them? And what happens if locally raised groups are already performing functions once reserved by the parties, such as contacting their neighbors and friends and identifying who among them is animate about and intimate with the idea of the need for change?
Well, the answer should be obvious. The pros go nuts. Their new vacation home is in jeopardy so they will go on television and write junk pieces of op-ed works. They will try to destroy this movement before it gets traction. Citizens organizing independent of a political machine are a threat to the income of the professionals in the business.
Watch the talk shows and read the papers. The pros will find a five second sound byte, out of a ten hour tape of the convention, and beat the “extreme” logo to death and then invite their hosts to tramp on the body they just flopped flat before them in an effort to discredit this movement and to discourage others – people who may not want to be labeled kooks – from acting on their own.
After watching some of the presentations of the Tea Party Convention on C-Span once would easily conclude that these are not tin-foil-hat-wearing nuts. These are people who do not appreciate the power and influence that the national political parties have over our government.
Zogby says:
| .. While people who are official members of Tea Party organizations and those who attend Tea Parties are relatively few, those who are generally sympathetic to their cause are many. In fact, taken together, these three groups comprise 47% of likely voters according to our latest survey. Senator Scott Brown’s assertion that he could not win with a mere support of the Tea Party Movement misses this larger point: Tea Party activists can elect few people but Tea Party supporters can elect many more and winning without at least some of the Tea Party sympathetic vote is, at the present moment, a tall order. |
According to Zogby there is One common thread.
|
President Obama’s approval among Tea Party supporters is very close to zero. In a very real sense, this is the most uniting feature of the movement. Yet, in the wake of the Senate election in Massachusetts, many Democrats seem to believe that they can co-opt the movement’s populist rhetoric, by lashing out at Wall Street and talking about jobs, and in that way harness its intensity while changing its target.
The success of this strategy is by no means assured. The populist wave is at odds with Washington on a lot of levels. |
Hint to consultants: Careful with that idea of changing the message.
| Contrary to the often repeated claim that Tea Partiers lack agreed upon set of views, our data shows that terrorism and perceived unwillingness to talk about it in a straightforward manner might be another issue around which opposition to Washington will rally. Ironically, shifting their attention from health care might make Tea Partiers angrier. |
(I)ndependence is being decapitalized, and the pros have no idea what to do about it.
by Ronald Scott
* More novels by 
* 
(
)
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
