Tea Party Rallies Dominate the Capital: Are Progressives and Liberal Democrats Out-Organized?

[marmar]

from AlterNet:




On the terrace that graces the FreedomWorks office suite, right-wing bloggers are chatting jovially, clustered around a beer keg. It's a perfect September night, cool and breezy. The sun is setting over Washington, and from this prime piece of real estate occupied by one of the Tea Party movement's prime movers, one glimpses the top of the National Archives, a large Romanesque structure just a block away, and the twinkling lights of the city beyond. The mood is gleeful: the bloggers smell a big win coming their way in November, when the right could very well win control of the Congress.

Just days ahead of its second 9/12 march on Washington, FreedomWorks has gathered 175 bloggers from 35 states, according to Tabitha Hale, FW's coordinator of interactive media, for a weekend of training just ahead of the November elections, in which FreedomWorks has no small stake. Early in the campaign, FreedomWorks and its chairman, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, set out to rock the Republican establishment and did, backing a handful of Senate candidates in primary challenges to those endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Now, the job is bigger. It's time to beat the Democrats, and polls are indicating that Republicans have a good shot at winning the House and making significant gains in the Senate.

Twice in the course of the last two and a half weeks, the right has drawn thousands of its activists to Washington, D.C., a town once known as a liberal's paradise, overtaking the National Mall, and its surrounding restaurants and coffee shops. This weekend features not only FreedomWorks' 9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington and its blogger conference, but a September 11 rally by a more far-right group, Unite in Action, and an organizing conference directed Ralph Reed, the GOP campaign consultant and former Christian Coalition executive director who was implicated (but never charged) in the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal. Two weekends ago, Glenn Beck's rally filled the Mall with as many as 300,000 Tea Partiers. What is the progressive counterpart to these activities? Not much.

Even the Beck weekend was about more than the rally: while the Fox News personality made a big show of his show at the Lincoln Memorial being (cough) non-political, both FreedomWorks and David Koch's Americans for Prosperity Foundation drew thousands to surrounding and openly political events. The AFPF/Koch convention in the days preceding the Beck rally featured all manner of how-to break-out sessions on how to turn out the vote for right-wing candidates and turn up the heat on liberal lawmakers. And next weekend, several thousand more activists will be in town for the Family Research Council's annual Values Voter Summit. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news/148152/conservative_and_tea_party_rallies_and_trainings_dominate_the_capital%3A_are_progressives_and_liberal_democrats_about_to_be_out-organized_/

[USArmyParatrooper]

1. In a word: Yes

They definitely have more party discipline and as such carry out politics like a war. This includes the Republicans in Washington, Republican blogs and forums, Republican pundits and even the Republican base.

Make no mistake when you oppose the right-wing machine you're up against a Juggernaut.

[Jensen]

2. I so agree with you...We have let them run over us!!

[USArmyParatrooper]

3. This is one reason I have a problem with "Democrats" who have Obama derangement syndrom (eom)

[DBoon]

7. they also have media access and a lot more money

media access is the difference between tea party events now and anti-war events held before the Iraq invasion.

The anti-war events overwhelmed the tea party events in pure numbers, but received just a token share of the MSM coverage

[HughBeaumont]

4. So this author is buying the "300,000" lie?

First of all, it isn't like progressives never protest. We did en masse all throughout the Failure Fratster's reign. Hundreds of thousands throughout the years gathered to protest his policies, particularly his wars. And we did this all without the help of the complicit Fourth Estate, who will never promote our causes.

The difference is, no matter how many people were at these things, the media never registers a blip . . . well, because they love Republicans and consider us a bunch of un-American traitors. There's really not much more to say about that; when have you ever seen a Universal Health Care advocate on major cable news?

There's the problem: If this is all conservatives can draw with the help of promotion on all of their stations (radio, TV, Satellite, etc), are they REALLY outdrawing us? We'll see on 10.2.2010 if their numbers are greater. Mind you, the march on 10.2.2010 isn't being promoted by M$M, since it's a jobs, and in turn, LIFE issue.

Just surprised that this author fell for the inflated numbers of FailFest 2010.

[fasttense]

5. No, just out spent.

All those corporations want to control our federal government and the best way to do that is to dump money on tea-baggers.

They pretend it's grassroots and pay off a sitting Supreme Court Justice, I mean pay off his wife, and all the crazies follow around like well trained poodles.

Then of course there is the corporate censured news organizations that ignore absolutely anything liberals protest and swarm over any two fake protesters. So, it's all smoke an mirrors and lots and lots of cash.

[AldebTX]

6. They Get Better Media Exposure Too

Because Liberal and Progressive rallies are supposedly "boring" so says Faux news.

[leveymg]

8. The GOP does one thing really well: they keep their grassroots mobilized, and are willing to pay

a living wage to their activists to keep the party going, even after devastating defeats, such as the one in 2008. That strategy pays off handsomely come the next Election Day.

The Democratic leadership -- and the Democratic professional political class in DC -- on the other hand, largely disdains and marginalizes its activist base. To rub salt into the wound, the Blue Dogs proudly distance themselves by voting along with the GOP on important symbolic issues, such as keeping tax cuts for the Very Rich. Yet, they expect and demand that we're going to break our asses to do volunteer GOTV and campaign work.

The Democratic party bosses now think that a $50 million media buy is going to make up for the loss of most of their campaign volunteers.

This losing pattern has been repeated in election cycles over and over again, because it's always the same people running things - frankly, some of them would rather be in charge of the opposition party than serving as back-benchers under even a moderately progressive White House and Congressional majority. The professional centrists really do put ideology ahead of even party allegiance. I think some of them actually enjoy being perennial losers - it gives them a feeling of virtuous rectitude and some job security, as few people with great talent and ambition would really want to spend a career working for a losing party. We are suffering from that brain drain that goes back to Reagan, and has never really been overcome - there are some brilliant exceptions, such as Dr. Dean and those around him. But, that just proves a general rule.

[rAVES]

9. What you need is a central organisation like Fox news.

[leveymg]

10. Fox News loses money - a lot of it - but Murdoch and his Saudi business partners have very deep

pockets, and are willing to make the political investment that pays off splendidly.

Take a look at the NewsCorp earnings reports. While the media conglomerate makes money overall, the books are like swiss cheese with huge losses and write-offs. http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100202/news-corp-beats-earnings-revenue-estimates/

The Left-wing of the Democratic Party doesn't have a willing foreign partner, as does the GOP Right. I guess that makes us the penniless patriots, and what does that make them?