The astroturf wars: no reform = more Republicans
From the Plumline:
On a private conference call, a group of top Tea Party and conservative organizers offered a surprisingly frank description of their goal, according to a source on the call: Completely blocking any kind of bipartisan compromise, and completely preventing any type of health care reform bill at all from ever becoming law.
The source who got himself on the call was an organizer for the AFL-CIO, and AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale provided me with the organizer’s notes. …The call consisted of representatives of top conservative groups, such as the American Liberty Alliance, the “Tea Party Patriots,” and RecessRally.com, the AFL-CIO’s notes say.
The moderator on the call, whose name could not immediately be determined, told listeners that bipartisan compromise on the Senate Finance Committee, where senators are holding talks, must be stopped at all costs, AFL-CIO’s notes say. The moderator called on members to pressure GOP Senators seeking compromise with Dems, like Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, and Olympia Snowe, to stop the negotiating.
“The goal is not compromise, and ANY bill coming out this year would be a failure for us,” the moderator said, according to AFL-CIO’s notes. The moderator added that “the Democrats will turn even a weak bill from the Senate Finance Committee into Canadian-style single-payer through underhanded implementation.”
Another organizer on the call, according to AFL-CIO, added: “The purpose of Tea Parties is not to find a solution to the health care crisis — it is to stop what is not the solution: Obamacare.”
So one goal of the astro turf protests, lynching re-enactments and tea party hysterics is to prevent any changes to the current healthcare system, which most thinking people realize is making a lot of people rich. But there has to be more to it. Some elements of the healthcare and business lobbies have embraced at least some version of reform, if for no other reason than it will serve their bottom lines. Well clearly there is more. Here’s an email Human Events sent out just two hours ago, right at the close of the news cycle:
Help Bring About a New Republican Revolution
Dear Fellow Conservative,In November 1994, a great tide of conservative Republicans swept to victory in races all across America, wresting control of Congress from the stagnant, liberal Democrats and bringing principled, reform-minded energy to Bill Clinton’s “big government knows best” Washington, D.C.
I am very proud to have been a part of that historic achievement, unseating the Democrat incumbent to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate. But I couldn’t have done it without the difference-making support of the Republican National Committee.
I believe that we are facing a very similar opportunity today.
Across our nation, voters are waking up to the disastrous consequences of Barack Obama’s presidency. Americans who were willing to take him at his word when he campaigned as a supposedly “reasonable,” “moderate” candidate are beginning to understand what lies behind the media hype and insincere charm.
President Obama and his Pelosi-Reid Democrat allies in Congress are radical leftists determined to remake America into a socialist “utopia.”
They jeopardize our future, with activist judges who disregard the Constitution, wholesale takeover of banks, manufacturers, insurance companies and health care, outrageous and unsustainable taxation and spending which saddle our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars in debt, rising unemployment and inflation, and a foreign policy of apology and dithering in the face of deadly global threats.
A new tide of popular grassroots opposition to the Obama Democrats’ senseless policies and insatiable hunger for power is rising across America.
In the spirit of our great Founders, Main Street Americans are voicing their opposition with a renewed sense of patriotism. Tea Party protests, enthusiasm for less government, and anger at Washington’s derisive attitude toward America’s bedrock values are growing.
There is real enthusiasm for a truly conservative alternative to the leftist Democrats. And RNC Chairman Michael Steele and I know that our Party can ride that wave of enthusiasm to victory in upcoming elections.
That is why I’m asking you to stand with us as we work to recruit and elect principled, conservative Republican candidates who will work to reverse the Democrats’ damage and govern with humility and respect.
Please help us lay the groundwork to win back government for the American people by making a contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500, or $1,000 to join the Republican National Committee today.
The next Republican Revolution starts with you. Please help the RNC support tomorrow’s leaders the way they supported me.
Please join our fight today. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Rick Santorum
P.S. America needs new leadership, and we must be ready to provide it. Help us support real conservative Republicans who will sweep to victory and provide the good governance Americans deserve. Please take this opportunity right now to help my friend Michael Steele and the good folks at the RNC support strong, conservative Republican candidates by making an online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500, or $1,000 to the RNC today. Thank you.
This ginned up, phony “revolution” isn’t about healthcare. It isn’t about “the constitution.” It’s about getting Republicans elected in 2010. But here’s the problem: the RNC bluebloods know what they’re doing and why. But the crazies they’re stirring up are angry (over the election), hysterical, irrational, and looking for action. Some are even packing (thought this guy seemed to be a ron Paul devotee, not a birther.) As Gawker puts it:
But let’s be clear: anyone watching the mounting rage over, of all things, health care — perhaps one of the most boring and complex policy subjects — has to worry that these people are going to try to kill Barack Obama. That’s not an extrapolation from unhinged rhetoric, or a partisan reading of the imagined intentions of our political enemies. It’s a rational reading of the anticipated behavior of a man who brandishes a gun at the location where the president is expected to imminently arrive while holding a sign that openly advocates his assassination. And the astonishing, breathtaking, maddening fact that he hasn’t been violently taken to the ground by large men wearing suits and earpieces is an open encouragement to anyone else so inclined to give it a shot.
There are always people who want to kill the president. Generally speaking, they are politically marginalized, insane, and/or too incompetent to come close to achieving their ends. But in the past six months, people who would be inclined to do violence to our political leaders have been affirmatively embraced by the Republican Party and its messaging operation
Meanwhile, the Republican who invented the so-called “death panels” basically calls Sarah Palin nuts. And the Moderate Voice flags a Marc Ambinder post about what Republicans may have lost in the teabagging translation. Ambinder’s bottom line:
Democrats are beginning to notice that opponents of health care reform have discredited themselves. They ramped up much too quickly. When smaller, conservative groups Astroturfed, they inevitably brought to the meetings the type of Republican activist who was itching for a fight and who would use the format to vent frustrations at President Obama himself. There were plenty of activists who really wanted to know about health care, and some who were probably misinformed — scared out of their chairs — to some degree, but the loudest voices tended to be the craziest, the most extreme, the least sensible, and the most easy to mock.
Not to mention fun to mock …
Comments
Leave a Reply
Connect
Book deals
Links
Finalist: Best Liberal Blog
Poll
Loading ...
