Bill Berkowitz: Tea Party Express III on the launching pad

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Bill Berkowitz

Sarah Palin to help Tea Party Express launch its third nation-wide bus tour in Searchlight, Nevada, on March 27

The organizers of the Tea Party Express franchise are ready to roll once again. They recently announced plans for its “Tea Party Express III: Just Vote Them Out” tour. The national tour will kick-off on March 27th with a rally in Searchlight, NV (hometown to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) and will conclude at the White House in Washington, D.C. on April 15th (Tax Day). Along the way there will be stops in a number of cities including Las Vegas, Phoenix and Flagstaff, Arizona, Topeka, Kansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Little Rock, Arkansas, Nashville, Tennessee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Detroit, and Boston.

“You, the politicians in Washington, have failed We The People with your bailouts, out-of-control deficit spending, government takeovers of sectors of the economy, Cap & Trade, government-run health care, and higher taxes! If you thought we were just going to quietly go away, or that this tea party movement would be just a passing fad, you were sadly mistaken. We’re taking our country back!” the Tea Party Express website exclaimed.

To maximize national publicity for the tour – beyond what the Fox News Channel will inevitable provide --  organizers have pulled off a major political coup; a commitment from Sarah Palin to be on the launching pad in Searchlight.

In a recent op-ed piece for USA Today, Palin, the former governor of Alaska, and the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president, announced that in March, she would be “head[ing] to Searchlight, Nev., for the kickoff rally at the Tea Party Express III.”  The TPE III website also pointed out that Palin would be on hand for the TPE III rally scheduled for Boston on April 14.

Think Progress’ Matt Corley recently characterized the Tea Party Express III as “a gimmick” of the Republican public relations firm Russo, Marsh and Rogers (RMR), a Sacramento, California-based public relations company that has worked on a number of political campaigns for Republican clients, was deeply  involved in the successful campaign that recalled California Governor Gray Davis, and is the primary sponsor of Our Country Deserves Better PAC, a political action committee which during the 2008 presidential campaign ran some of the more scurrilous advertisements against Barack Obama’s candidacy.

Our Country/Tea Party Express has become a major funding source for RMR, raising $1.9 million in 2009 ($600,000 more than in 2008). According to TPMMuckraker, 76% of Our Country Deserves Better PAC’s $1.33 million total spending for the period of June through November 2009, went to Russo, Marsh and Rogers or entities closely associated with it: “From July to November, … OCDB paid $168,437 to King Media Group, for creating ads for the Tea Party Express, according to FEC filings. And King Media has very close ties to Russo, Marsh [and Rogers]. Sal Russo, the founder of … [RMR] is listed as a ‘senior advisor’ on King Media's site. Three other … [RMR] staffers also are listed as officers of King Media. The two companies are both located in the same Sacramento office building, and their websites share a design scheme.”

Alternet reported that a chunk of money went for advertising on the near-moribund Fox Business Network and in the controversy-plagued Rev. Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times.

In another -- rather strange – entrepreneurial development, The Huffington Post’s Alex Brant-Zawadzki recently reported that “On July 9, Russo emailed Deborah Johns, Vice Chairperson of Our Country Deserves Better, contemplating a fundraiser in order to collect $200,000 to pay for a Caribbean cruise. The dialogue shows the $50,000 budget for the cruise and $150,000 in pocket money.” The cruise never materialized.

According to the New York Times, TPE spent $384,000 on the successful Massachusetts senate campaign of Scott Brown.

In a blog post dated January 31, Lloyd Marcus, an African American musician responsible for composing what’s being called the “American Tea Party Anthem," pointed out that “our friends in the liberal blogs and media outlets (including MSNBC, Media Matters, Huffington Post, TPM Muckracker, Mother Jones, and others) have been doing all sorts of attack hit pieces criticizing the tea party movement as a whole and the Tea Party Express in particular.”

"Here's what I wrote to my team members at Tea Party Express in response to the attacks:

"You know TPX has become a powerful force when people take shots at you. GREAT WORK! (smile) All the best, Lloyd"

“So I tell you what I'm going to do.  I'm going to send you an email in the next few days that will debunk all of the crazy attacks and smears being launched against us.”

As of this writing, Marcus, who is a member of the Tea Party Express “tour delegation”, has not provided documentation debunking the “attack hit pieces.”

Marcus is also featured in a FoxNews.com report headlined “Black Conservatives Take Lead Role in Tea Party Movement.”

Tea Party Express Tour Partners include Our Country Deserves Better PAC, MultiCultural Conservative Coalition, The Howard Jarvis Tax Payers Association, MarkTalk (Mark Williams, vice chairman of Our Country Deserves Better PAC), Lloyd Marcus, The American Conservative Union, Grassfire.org, ResistNet.com, and, National Tax-limitation Committee PAC.

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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