Will the Real Tea Party Movement Please Stand Up?
"The Tea Party Express is successfully raking in money and garnering
tons of media attention while the real grassroots movement,
the Tea Party Patriots, struggles to raise money and get attention."
by Anne Landman
PRwatch.org: April 19, 2010
Have you wondered how the Tea Party, portrayed as a "grassroots" movement,
could possibly raise enough money in one year to procure a
professionally-painted, luxury motor coach and send it on two
highly-publicized national tours? Or how the Tea Party so quickly developed
the expertise to plan, organize and execute the tours, and consistently draw
major media attention to them?
The answer is that the Tea Party Express is not a "grassroots" effort. The
Web site Politico.com obtained and posted a proposal (pdf) showing that
long-time Republican party operatives are, in fact, directing the "Tea Party
Express" portion of the movement. The "group" and its activities are the
result of efforts by a Republican-affiliated political consulting and public
relations firm, Russo Marsh & Rogers, based in Sacramento, California. PR
executive Sal Russo of Russo, Marsh & Rogers is also the chief strategist
for the Our Country Deserves Better, political action committee (PAC) formed
in 2008 to oppose then-candidate Barack Obama.
A Visible "Brand"
The "Tea Party Express" is one of the more visible "brands" of the overall
tea party movement. It is the faction that organized the highly publicized
desert rally in Searchlight, Nevada last March to oppose Senator Harry Reid
(D-Nevada), an event that cost around $1 million to pull off -- a pretty big
chunk of change for a real "grassroots" gathering.
Since forming in 2008, the Our Country Deserves Better PAC has taken in more
than $4.5 million in donations, including major contributions from corporate
executives and other wealthy supporters of conservative candidates, like the
actor Chuck Norris. The PAC does not have to disclose who its big-name
funders are.
"Tea Party Express" PR Proposal
The PR proposal obtained by Politico was written by Joe Wierzbicki, a
principal at Russo Marsh & Rogers. In it, Wierzbicki suggests essentially
taking over the Tea Party movement by rushing in with campaign-style event
planning and advance work. He suggests obtaining a "proper luxury coach
wrapped in 'tea party'-themed graphical design," and sending it out to
"cross the nation, stopping in cities to conduct 'tea parties.' " Wierzbicki
suggests inviting local Tea Party leaders, talk radio hosts and
fiscally-conservative political candidates to speak at each stop. Wierzbicki
says a major fundraising effort would be needed "to 'do this 'right' (have
an awesome looking tour bus, getting the word out, having
slick/persuasive/compelling advertising, paying for permits/insurance
hotels, food, etc... ). He suggests that, to raise the money, "the bus tour
rallies focus not on asking for funds to support the tour, but on the "
'Defeat Harry Reid' or 'Defeat Chris Dodd' or 'Defeat Arlen Specter'
political components to this effort." In other words, Wierzbicki suggests
exploiting the real Tea Partiers' emotions to raise money, and take the
focus off the PR project itself. He also suggests renting email lists from
conservative news outlets like Newsmax, Human Events, WorldNetDaily, etc. to
begin direct fundraising -- again, not a cheap endeavor.
All of Wierzbicki's ideas are professional-style campaign moves proposed by
a GOP-affiliated, political PR firm. In fact, they bear a suspicious
similarity to the strategy we saw in another big-funded, right-wing endeavor
by Americans for Prosperity: the "Hands Off My Health Care Bus" and its
tours around the nation. Clearly, none of this is the work of the
kitchen-table set.
"Outsider" Sensitivity, "Buttressing Authenticity"
Wierzbicki expresses sensitivity to the issue of outsiders coming in and
"working" the tea party theme. He says,
"We have to be very very careful about discussing amongst ourselves anyone
we include 'outside of the family' because quite frankly, we are not only
NOT part of the political establishment or conservative establishment, but
we are also sadly not currently a part of the 'tea party' establishment ..."
Wierzbicki acknowledges the difference between their big PR effort and
"real" grassroots activists:
"We can probably pull off a phenomenally successful tour without these
big-ego establishment types, provided that we do a good job in getting the
word out to local tea party leaders and grass roots conservatives who
operate in their local communities independently as is..."
He discusses "buttressing our authenticity" by featuring local supporters
and donors in TV ads that target Harry Reid.
True Grassroots Buried
Most everything Wierzbicki put in his proposal has come to fruition. The Tea
Party Express is successfully raking in money and garnering tons of media
attention while the real grassroots faction of the movement, the Tea Party
Patriots, struggles to raise money and get attention. The Patriots have said
they do not want to support political parties or PACs, and have accused the
"Tea Party Express" of being a "sham organization" and an "astroturf"
outfit. They point out that Republican strategists are co-opting a true
conservative movement to raise money to support the party's agenda. The
Patriots have even charged that Tea Party Express organizers dragoon real
grassroots Tea Party activists into doing the grunt work for the
professional campaign, like getting them to help set up stages and clean up
rally sites after the bus leaves.
Even More Dubious Tea Party Factions
Other Tea Party factions are equally dubious: Tea Party Nation (the entity
that organized the first official Tea Party convention last February in
Nashville, Tennessee) is purely a for-profit business entity. Its official
name, "Tea Party Nation Corporation," is even registered with the Tennessee
Department of Agriculture and Commerce, Division of Business Services. Its
business is selling "tea party" merchandise, like bejeweled tea bag pins
($89.99 apiece), regular and decaffeinated "Freedom" coffee beans, trucker
hats, coolers and other items at a Web site called Tea PartyEmporium.com.
Tea Party Nation's organizer, an attorney named Judson Phillips, was even
alleged to have linked a PayPal account for Tea Party Nation merchandise to
his wife's bank account.
Corporate Backing
Reports indicate that the Tea Party movement benefits from millions of
dollars in funding funneled to it from conservative foundations supported by
mega-wealthy U.S. families and their business interests.
Money to organize and implement Tea Party activities flows primarily through
two conservative groups: Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks. In an
April 9, 2009 article posted on ''ThinkProgress.org'', Lee Fang reported
that the principal Tea Party movement organizers are Americans for
Prosperity and Freedom Works, two "lobbyist-run think tanks" that are "well
funded" and provide the logistics and organizing for the Tea Party movement
from coast to coast. ''Media Matters'' reported that FreedomWorks receives
substantial funding from David Koch of Koch Industries, the largest
privately-held energy company in the country, and the conservative Koch
Family Foundations, which make substantial annual donations to conservative
organizations (including FreedomWorks and other conservative think tanks
advocacy groups). Media Matters reports that the Koch family has given more
than $12 million to FreedomWorks and its predecessor, Citizens for a Sound
Economy, between 1985 and 2002.
"Fox News Tea Parties"?
The Tea Party also gets substantial support in the form of promotion from
the Fox News Channel and its talk show hosts, including Glenn Beck. Media
Matters noted that "While discussing the April 15 protests on his April 6
program, Beck suggested that viewers could "[c]elebrate with Fox News" by
either attending a protest or watching it on Fox News. Beck stated that in
addition to himself, hosts Neil Cavuto, Greta Van Susteren, and Sean Hannity
would be "live" at different protests. While Beck spoke, on-screen text
labeled those protests as "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties."
The Real "Takeover" is by Corporate Interests
While tea partiers load their rifles and worry about a supposed "government
takeover," their nascent movement itself has, in fact, been taken over by
GOP-affiliated PACs, professional PR operatives, wealthy corporate interests
seeking a "grassroots" face and by individuals seeking to profit off of
citizens' honest concern about the country's political direction. Like a
human hand zooming in and animating an otherwise limp hand puppet, these
entities have zoomed in and co-opted the tea party movement from the inside
out, and have started using it to advance their own agendas.
The bright side is that this episode is instructive to people on both sides
of the political spectrum about how entrenched corporate, media and
political interests work together to co-opt real public sentiment, and
harness it to advance their own goals. A "big government" takeover may seem
like less of a threat when viewed through the prism of how all these big,
professional political and corporate-level interests have siezed the tea
party movement and started using it for their own gain.
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