The Tea Party Nation appears to be coming apart. Plans for the National Tea Party Unity Convention have been in turmoil since it was first announced last February. Their original date was in mid-July, but that was scuttled for a variety of reasons that all sounded like excuses to me. So they rescheduled for October. At the time I wrote that the convention’s prospects were dim and I predicted their demise.
“This looks bad for the Tea Party Convention and for the Tea Party in general. If they can’t whip up enough excitement to populate their big ‘unity’ conference, they are going to have a hard time motivating voters who are not nearly as engaged as the sort of people who flock to these gatherings. Time will tell if the rescheduling has the desired effect. If not, the next press release we see may be the one announcing that the convention was canceled.”
Guess what? The web site for the convention is gone. Disappeared. Ceased to be. There is no remnant of it or explanation. There is no announcement of its demise, nor that of the event. The site and the convention have dissolved into the ether. There is also no mention of the event on the site of its sponsor, Tea Party Nation. (Here is a cached copy of the convention web site).
Raven Brooks, the executive director of Netroots Nation, dug a little further and confirmed the that Tea Partiers have indeed been left high and dry. He called the hotel who told him that “the room block had been canceled and the Mirage had no record of the event.” Netroots Nation, it should be noted, recently held a very successful convention in Las Vegas. Perhaps the Tea Party Nation would like to contact Brooks and get some advice on how it’s done.
I also called the Mirage and they told me the same thing they told Brooks. In addition, I asked if the event had been canceled or if it had never been scheduled in the first place. They told me that they had no contract at all for the event. The cached copy of the convention web site has the Palazzo as the event’s hotel, although that was the first location in July. The October booking was for the Mirage. I called the Palazzo anyway and they also had no record of the event.
This is beginning to sound like a scam. The promoter, Judson Phillips, was broadly criticized when he mounted his first convention for turning the Tea Party movement into a for-profit affair and for paying Sarah Palin $100,000 to read platitudes off of her hand. So it would be interesting to find out what will happen to any registration fees that were collected for the convention (at $400.00 a pop)? Were the speakers, who included Sharron Angle, Lou Dobbs, and Andrew Breitbart, paid for committing to appear? Will the sorry dupes who shelled out for hotel room deposits or airfare just have to eat their losses?
Back in June I wondered about the possibility of a future press release announcing that this convention would be canceled. I guess I gave them too much credit because it appears they’ve decided to just pretend it never existed. That’s pretty much what we’ll be saying about the Tea Party in a couple of years.
I thought the whole point of a (fake) grassroots organization is that it fits in one’s back pocket. The fact that there are now so many tea bagger orginazitions should be proof of this. When someone tries to unify all of them, it’s no longer grassroots and can’t fit anymore. I always thought part of the appeal for being a tea bagger was being part of the small minority that “gets it”. How intelligent does one have to be to know that a political movement that prides itself on (fake) fiscal responsibility and keeping more money probably won’t want to pay out the rectum for a seat at a convention to only be used as an applause decoration. Not to mention the fact that half of all tea bagger orginazitions ate warring with each other about which group should headline which rally etc etc.
All true except…
The Tea Party was NEVER a grassroots organization. It started when a CNBC anchor (Rick Santelli) made a rant on air in front of a bunch of cheering commodities traders. I don’t think CNBC’s high income demographic is “grassroots.” Then it was picked up by Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, groups funded by right-wing billionaires (the Koch brothers) and Washington insiders (Dick Armey). They literally paid for the buses that brought the “grassroots” Tea Partiers to the rallies. And of course, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck came along and further fueled the fanatic fires from their perch on Fox News.
It was an elitist, scam from the start.
I’d bet everything I have and will ever own that all of said tea bagger founders would bicker endlessly about who deserves the credit for the (fake) movement’s beginnings. Why? $$$$$$$ When will these people realize that the only reason republicans want the votes of anyone that isn’t absurdly rich is because they couldn’t attain power otherwise??
How can one be a religious adherent while defending one’s freedom to greed and still claim moral superiority? How can one support using the second amendment as a means of modern violent revolution when one is a long standing member of the government to be overthrown? How can one claim scientific evidence for creationism while simultaneously disregarding well accepted scientific evidence for……anything?? The right takes fake positions in order to manipulate anyone and everyone that isn’t rich. Thats not to say some don’t truly feel that way about these fake issues, it just means the coolaid is loaded with caffeine and gets the drinkers to run for office.
P.S.
Saw the store link after my last post…will probably put an order in soon. Sorry for the rantings…..just feel the need to get it out there. Keep on keepin on!