Bill Berkowitz: Pro Iraq War PAC's 'Tea Party Express' sputters along attacking health care reform

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
By Bill Berkowitz

Thus far, the crowds have been anemic, the signs being carried by attendees are all over the map, and the entertainment sucks. At one of its first stops in Nevada, the Tea Party Express' Lloyd Marcus, a conservative African American who appears to fancy himself as some kind of modern day Charlie Pride, summoned a small group of "ladies" from the crowd to act as background dancers while he unleashed a totally bizarre, hopelessly out-of-tune anti-Obama version of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York":

"Start spreading the news, we're taking back America, in 2010. … the nightmare must come to an end. Cause we're gonna vote them out -- yes we are -- in 2010."

If this was an audition for American Idol, Marcus and his crew would have been Simon-ized!

After a few days of its highly touted "Tea Party Express" tour, the crowds are pretty small -- from a few hundred in Elko, Nevada and El Paso, Texas to close to 1,400 in Las Cruces, New Mexico -- and if it weren't for the Fox News Channel's Griff Jenkins being embedded aboard the "Tea Party Express," there wouldn't be a heck of a lot to report.

Despite the small crowds, the "Tea Party Express" is getting a major boost from conservative media outlets across the country, in addition to the occasional mention in the mainstream media. Thus far, however, the most colorful aspect of the rallies has been the signage. The Las Vegas Review-Journal's John L. Smith reported seeing signs that read: "Obama Care: Change we don't believe in," "Be a Reid Wacker," "Bye! Harry," "Dump Reid," "Conservatives for Freedom," "Stop the Spending," "Hope won't hold your place in the bread line," "Take our country back," "The stimulus is a Obamanation," and "Higher taxes don't create jobs!"

At a Flagstaff, Arizona rally, some folks carried signs reading "Hands Off My Healthcare" and "Kill the Obamacare bill." However, it was Vicki Grant, a 59-year-old real estate investor, who carried a sign that likely expressed the inner-most desires and fears of the crowd. It read: "Impeach the Fascist Dictator."

No holds barred fight against Obama

Last year, Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) PAC was responsible for some of the nastiest television advertisements -- which ran in the battleground states of Colorado and Michigan -- attacking the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. The organization may have raised large amounts of money from conservative donors, but its "Stop Obama Tour" turned out to be a dud; rallies were poorly attended and the bus tour garnered little media attention.

Although Joe Wierzbicki, an organizer and spokesperson for the OCDB PAC, pledged last fall -- in an interview with Media Transparency -- to conduct a civil campaign, the titles of the ads appeared to be straight out of the Swift Boating 101 playbook: "Obama, Ayers, Wright, Kilpatrick," "Obama's Wrong Values," "Obama's Patriotism Problem," "Obama Not Faithful to Our Military," and "Obama's Awful High Tax Policies."

In October 2008, FactCheck.org pointed out that the anti-Obama ads were based on "charges that fueled months' worth of misleading and false chain e-mails." CBS News reported that an ad that appeared in Colorado was "essentially a compilation of most of the character and association attacks made against Barack Obama throughout the year."

After the election, OCDB made a show of supporting Sarah Palin, the GOP's vice presidential candidate and the recently resigned governor of Alaska. In mid-November, the PAC announced plans to run television ads around Thanksgiving thanking Palin. Within days, "about 1,000 people … donated tens of thousands of dollars to" the organization, The New York Times election blog reported on November 11. Joe Wierzbicki told the Times that his group felt there has been "an absence of a pro-Palin cohort. ... This woman's reputation is going to be so damaged that she can never be a national political figure," he added. The goal of the ad is to "preserve her options."

Around the time of President Obama's inauguration, OCDB declared, in an ad at HumanEvents.com, that it was aiming "serve as one of the leading conservative organizations that will help prepare for a conservative resurgence in 2009 and 2010." OCDB warned conservatives that "Obama is perhaps the most liberal person ever to be elected to serve as Commander in Chief of these United States of America, and it is now the responsibility for conservatives to serve as the 'loyal opposition' to Obama's liberal policies -- just as MoveOn.org, Code Pink, and all the liberal organizations stood up to the Bush Administration and Republicans in Congress."

According to SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, in June 2009, the group "launched a campaign called 'stop cap and trade' … [which] claimed that the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill 'will saddle Americans with thousands of dollars in new taxes, fees, and costs each year.'"

The 'Tea Party Express' tour

That was then.

Now, OCDB is back with the "Tea Party Express" hoping to kneecap health care reform, and, along the way, set the table for defeating those Democrats it perceives as vulnerable.

On August 28, OCDB kicked off a nationwide bus tour that will wind its way through a number of cities and towns across the country rallying conservatives to oppose Congressional action on health care reform. The "Tea Party Express" -- a caravan that includes two 45-foot buses, several RVs and SUVs, and a moving van for additional equipment -- will end up with a march and rally in Washington, D.C. on September 12.

"Tea Party Express" tour partners include Marktalk.com -- the Web site of radio talk show host Mark Williams, Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, BusBank -- a bus chartering company, LloydMarcus.com -- a self-styled African American Tea Party bard and country singer, FreeRepublic.com, and the Multi-Cultural Conservative Coalition.

"I think the health care issues symbolize what the great debate in this country is about, and that is the overreaching of government, what is the appropriate role of government, and at what point does excessive government regulations and control interfere with the freedoms and liberties of individuals and their families," said Wierzbicki, coordinator of the Sacramento, CA based OCDB.

(Wierzbicki did not respond to a series of questions I sent him several via e-mails.)

The PAC is chaired by Howard Kaloogian, who was a California state assemblyman and helped lead the Recall Gray Davis Committee, which led to the governor's recall and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. Kaloogian is also the co-founder, along with Melanie Morgan, of the pro-Iraq war group Move America Forward. In 2006, as TPM Muckraker recently pointed out, Kaloogian got caught with his hand firmly embedded in the cookie jar when he "tried to pass off a picture of a quiet Istanbul street as having been taken during a trip he made to Baghdad -- then told a string of additional lies in trying to explain what happened."

Sal Russo, who according to the group's Web site "got his start in politics by working as a Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan" and "has spent over 30 years in the field of political consulting and public affairs," is the campaign's Chief Strategist.

Joe Wierzbicki, the PAC's Coordinator, is a principal of the Republican Party-associated public relations firm Russo Marsh & Rogers (RM+R), and he is also director of public relations at King Media Group, RM+R's mirror firm.

While tens of thousands of people lined streets and bridge overpasses in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. to pay a final tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy, 1,500 people turned out for the "Tea Party Express" initial event in Sacramento. CNN reported that "hundreds of people turned out for a series of weekend events as the Tea Party Express cruised across northern Nevada." OCDB hopes to lay the groundwork for unseating U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

"Obviously, we have made Nevada one of our top focuses on this tour with a very deliberate purpose, which is Sen. Reid," said Wierzbicki. "The people of Nevada felt like Harry Reid was one of their own, that he represented Nevada values. But now Sen. Reid is emblematic of those who say the solution is government getting more involved in our lives."

Desperately seeking Sarah

"As the Tea Party Express makes its way across the country, Sarah Palin has emerged as a favorite daughter of the movement, and organizers have invited her to join the tour -- or at least come to the final stop in the nation's capital," CNN reported on Tuesday,. September 2. "We've been in touch with her people, letting her know the response that we've gotten. She's very supportive of the movement," said Wierzbicki.

Will Palin emerge as a leader of the Tea Party movement? "I think it's a possibility," said Sal Russo, another OCDB spokesperson. "When the election was over in November, I think her support was a lot stronger than it is today. She's got to kind of get her act together, and develop a presence with the public that inspires some confidence. She could be the kind of person that becomes the leader of the Tea Party movement, but she hasn't done anything yet to assume that role."

There's no word yet whether Palin, who is busy working on her book -- 85% completed according to her father -- will accept the organizer's invitation and show up at the September 12 rally in Washington.

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement and a frequent writer for Z Magazine, Religion Dispatches and other online publications. He documents the strategies, players, institutions, victories, and defeats of the American Right from a progressive perspective.

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