It's Hard Out Here for a Teabagger

[marmar]

from The Week:



The Tea Party convention disaster
Reps. Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn drop out. Is the controversial, for-profit Tea Party convention killing the movement?

U.S. News & Opinion•Friday, January 29, 2010

Best opinion: Wash. Monthly, Newsweek, Mother Jones

Tea Party favorites Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have canceled scheduled appearances at next week's National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. Both cited the event's controversial finances—its organizers hope to make a profit by selling tickets at $549 per person—as the reason they dropped out. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is reportedly receiving a $100,000 speaking fee, says she won't drop out. But some Tea Party activists are urging her to reconsider, while others are threatening demonstrations outside the convention to protest what they see as the exploitation of their grass-roots movement. Is the event that was meant to unify the Tea Party movement going to tear it apart instead? (Watch an MSNBC report about the Tea Party convention's difficuties)

The convention's toast, but the Tea Party will survive: "The unraveling of the Tea Party convention doesn't necessarily reflect an unraveling of the larger right-wing 'movement,'" says Steve Benen in Washington Monthly. One "poorly planned debacle" of a convention says nothing about the strength of a far-flung "collection of unhinged activists." But the convention was meant to be "a key strategizing moment for the upcoming elections" and its implosion is certainly a setback.
"Tea Party convention continues to unravel"

Turning Tea Party anger inward could kill the movement: The Tea Party swept the nation because people were angry at Washington, says Joe Scarborough in Newsweek. Thanks to the convention, many of the movement's "most passionate and vocal members seem just as mistrusting of each other as they are of the federal government." If this keeps up, the Tea Party risks "tearing itself apart."
"Is the Tea Party over?"

Palin could be the real loser: The controversy is hurting ticket sales, says Stephanie Mencimer in Mother Jones. So many of the people urging Sarah Palin to drop out are just trying to protect her. If the dinner at which she's speaking turns out to be a total "flop," her speech could be "a humiliating public relations disaster."


http://www.theweek.com/article/index/105710/The_Tea_Party_convention_disaster

[BOSSHOG]

1. palin's friends advising her to QUIT?

Hey Sarah just say NO.

One of these days the fake patriots with fake values who fake outrage will realize that anything involving sarah palin is a "humiliating public relations disaster."

Paying sarah palin to speak, more proof that conservatism is a mental illness.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Now, if *I* were managing Sarah Palin . . . . ,

I'd organize her OWN tea party somewhere else, near free admission, defer speaking fees for my client (make her understand we have to eat this one), and let her bask in the sunshine of her loyal subjects. The "true" tea party. For The People, of The People, and by The People.

[MisterP]

3. same like the last right-wing populist movement! (Minutemen)

hope no families get slaughtered this time around...

of course, unlike Europe, the US hasn't had Marxists in public discourse since 1949--just in underground counterhegemony. Since we're left with a lot of mealy-mouths and outright conservatives, low-information voters' anger isn't channeled by a Kucinich-led faction, but by a Limbaugh-incited and Richard-Berman-controlled gang. We need some pink in America's gray meat, or it'll just be "vote for the younger, prettier Smiler who'll send your money to Citi and Aetna and throw you on the street" until 2118.

[Tippy]

4. Palin is Greedy will be hard for her to turn away from the 100,000

Speaking fee, I believe she gets that no matter how many or few show up...

[Bitwit1234]

5. The seemed to be all washed out

and left in the sink. Eh....