Politico attempts to kneecap Armey/FreedomWorks

[Perky]

Suggest Double dealing ways is Pissing off other Activists and provides all sortf of anecdotes on the Fractures within the movement.

And in recent weeks, Dick Armey has found himself targeted by a quiet, but concerted campaign from fellow conservatives challenging – and seeking to undermine – his status as a leader of the tea party movement.

Critics ranging from prominent conservatives to bloggers to grassroots tea party activists have called into question whether Armey’s stances on illegal immigration and social issues, his candidate endorsements and his past lobbying work are fundamentally inconsistent with the tea party movement. They also have suggested he raised the white flag too early in the fight over the Democratic healthcare overhaul and is beholden to corporate benefactors, and have accused him of trying to hijack the tea parties to serve those benefactors or his own personal political ambitions.

To be sure, some of the resentment seems to stem from jealousy over adept positioning by Armey that has put him and the small-government non-profit group he co-chairs, FreedomWorks, at the vanguard of tea party activism, which everyone on the right – from the Republican Party and its elected officials to the groups that emerged from the 1960s restructuring of the conservative movement – has jockeyed to harness.

But the attacks on Armey, which started as a whisper campaign and have spilled out into the open in the past couple weeks, also highlight deeper tensions within the loose confederation of local and state groups that make up the tea party, as well as the broader conservative movement, about whether there is any need for national leaders, and whether social and national security issues should be part of the agenda.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34990.html#ixzz0jC2z1K0X

Fire-breathing conservative blogger Michelle Malkin last week blasted Armey as an “amnesty stooge” and “a clueless promoter of bailout-happy, big government Republican Sen. John McCain.”

And Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council, said he has urged tea party activists to ignore FreedomWorks’ advice to minimize the profile of social and religious issues, which he charged the group was “intentionally avoiding, and that undermines the potential for success” in the tea party movement. Perkins said his staff has tried to discuss its concerns with FreedomWorks officials, but hasn’t been satisfied with their response.

Meanwhile, Michael Johns, a leader in the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition and a regular speaker at movement rallies, said FreedomWorks’ role in the movement “is in some ways overstated” and charged “there are a lot of activists who would say that FreedomWorks hasn’t always been the easiest to work with, either.”



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34990_Page2.html#ixzz0jC3KEhpl

Tea party activists tend to be deeply suspicious of both parties and the Washington establishment, as a whole, which many see as trying to co-opt their movement. So FreedomWorks has carefully tried to avoid the perception – encouraged partly by liberal critics seeking to delegitimize the tea parties – that it and Armey, 69, are steering, controlling, or funding the movement.

Still, FreedomWorks has undeniably played a key role in some of the tea party’s seminal moments, encouraging activists to protest Democratic healthcare plans at congressional town halls last summer and spending $500,000 to organize the massive “Taxpayer March on Washington” last fall.

Since it emerged as among the leading national organizers for tea party movement, FreedomWorks has seen its membership soar from 150,000 at the beginning of last year to nearly 600,000 today, and has experienced a boon in small-dollar online donations, Brandon said. The group is not required to disclose its donors, but according to Brandon, corporate donations comprise only about 10 percent of FreedomWorks’ annual $7 million budget.

He called the timing of the attacks against his group “curious – it popped right before the (final stage of the) health care debate. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it stemmed from information put out by allies of the Obama administration.”



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34990_Page3.html#ixzz0jC3uVvDz

Meanwhile, other tea party activists have grumbled about Armey’s praise of McCain of Arizona, a tea party villain, and his unflattering critique of McCain’s top GOP primary challenger J.D. Hayworth, a favorite of some tea partiers, as well as Armey’s endorsement of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s failed bid for the Texas’s GOP gubernatorial nomination against the more conservative Gov. Rick Perry and a tea party affiliated candidate named Debra Medina.

And some took issue with Armey’s seemingly off-handed – but accurate – prediction at the press club last week that Democrats will “probably force (healthcare) through.” Dan Riehl, an influential tea party-backing blogger, called that “a slap in the face of every genuine activist out here,” especially considering the comment came a day before a FreedomWorks-sponsored healthcare protest on Capitol Hill. Riehl pointed out the group was collecting contacts from “so many people (who) are out here every day putting so much into this stuff – and without the presumably six figure pay-out Armey enjoys for apparently talking the talk but not walking the walk



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34990_Page4.html#ixzz0jC4MfhjNt

[Cirque du So-What]

1. I generally take anything said at Politico with a 2-ton grain of salt

but they may be onto something resembling the truth this time. Dick Armey's astroturf campaign has run its course, so other conservatroid factions want to capture whatever momentum remains - along with the useful idiots with nowhere else to go and disposable income to throw at the next phase of the 'movement.'

[Bumblebee]

2. Good -- let them eat their own and stay away from Dems

[JBoy]

3. Very interesting! The perils of a "movement" treading on the turf of a "party"

You get the religious right, seeing the potential for a more socially conservative party emerging, trying to bring their issues to a tax-protesting movement.

You get jealousy of the up-to-now main funder/fundraiser for the movement, Freedomworks.

You get the guy who started (largely) anti-incumbent movement saying things in support of old guard candidates, bringing wrath down upon himself.

Sure sounds like a party is trying to emerge.


Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of fuckwits. Hope you'll all be very happy together!

[Perky]

4. Precisely these fractures are real and pronounced

and certainly big wedges withing the larger conservative movement.

The problem is that their is some bottom up resistance to a national leadership structure and thus it will always be largely dysfunctional. They really hate Institutionalized leadership and seem to prefer to have about 200 different fiefdoms. But it's that dysfunction....bordering on quasi militia that can be exploited for Democratic gains

[lunatica]

5. It couldn't happen to a more deserving fella

Karma comes back to bite Dick Armey on the ass. Payback.

[Clio the Leo]

6. fun, fun, fun! NT

[vaberella]

7. Now they care. n/t

[one_voice]

8. Does anyone else find it ironic that Michelle Malkin

is one of the biggest opponents of immigration..illegal or otherwise? She seems to hate any type of immigration reform. If she had her way no one would be allowed in the country.

That's the impression I have of her..