Tea Parties are American and all political parties best be waking up

April 13, 2009...9:42 am

Chicago Tax Day Tea Party To RNC: No Thanks

Three cheers for DontGo founder Eric Odom's handling of the latest high profile effort to politicize the Tea Party movement.   Here is the full press release from DontGo:

Is the Tea Party tied to the GOP? Of course not.

In fact, that couldn't be further from the truth. The reality is, the RNC has been about as effective as a lead balloon in actually engaging the free-market minded grassroots with regards to political action. The RNC, as well as all but two Republican members of Congress, have been eerily silent over the past few weeks.

RNC Chairman Steele's office did reach out to me on Tuesday (although rumor has it that he is now denying such a conversation took place) morning and the person I spoke with asked if we would be interested in having him speak at the Chicago Tea Party. This request was, of course, at the last minute and only after national media eyes became involved.

But that was the first time the RNC had really injected itself at the national level into any part of the Tea Party Movement.

Why do we use "Silent Majority" as our national brand?

Because the vast majority of those involved in the Tea Party effort are people who have sat at home yelling at their TV's for the past few years. This is a group of folks who have gone on with their lives in attempt at the American dream, only to be shell shocked by a sudden and bold surge towards full scale socialism… and we've had enough!

Most of those involved in the Tea Party Movement do not wish to see something with RNC or DNC involvement. We do not want the failed two party structure injecting itself into this movement for political gain.

That's not to say that there aren't Republicans or Democrats involved, because we have people identify themselves as both involved all across the country.

But there is certainly no evidence whatsoever that the Tea Party Movement is some kind of orchestrated GOP effort disguising itself as non-partisan. In fact, the evidence suggests quite the opposite.

Take Chicago, for example. A hand full of local young Republicans have been trolling and following me all over the web in an attempt to attack me at every opportunity. They hunt me down on Twitter and Facebook, lashing out at me because I refused to promote their REPUBLICAN sponsored event happening later in the day on April 15th.

Indeed, the FUNDED organizations and media outlets of the left are swinging at this movement from all angles, attempting to paint this as a GOP backed effort. But the reality is that thousands of free-market minded Americans don't see it that way.

The DontGo Movement was attacked last year by these same groups who claimed that we were taking oil money (still waiting on those magical checks, BTW), and now they claim we're under the spell of the Republican Party.

What part of "we're just Americans and we're mad as hell" do they not understand?

As a Tax Day Tea Party organizer myself, it is so frustrating to be fighting the accusation of partisanship on multiple fronts.  Of course, the Left assumes that this is an orchestrated attempt to smear their administration. That assumption was a foregone conclusion.  What's so funny about that is their claim that the Right Wing Machine has "astroturfed" this campaign.  That we're not grassroots.  That this is a top down effort.  (snort)  Tell me who might the be mastermind of such a campaign?  The internet savvy and grassroots connected RNC?  Perhaps it's Newt Gingrich and American Solutions, because, you know, they were such a force to contend with in the last election.  Maybe this is all being orchestrated by Rush Limbaugh.  You know, he's a Twittering, social networking machine.  Please, people.  The GOP, in any of its incarnations, is not savvy or effective enough to pull off something  of this scale.

In fact, the ineffective partisan organizations on the Right are feeling the momentum of our movement and running to jump on to the bandwagon.  From local politicians craving photo ops and platforms for speeches at Tea Parties, all the way to the RNC Chair, the partisan hacks on the Right are serving to undermine our commitment to non-partisanship.  Thus far, I have had more problems with die-hards in my own party trying to co-opt the Tea Party for the GOP, than with agitators from the other side.

I am so proud of Eric Odom for putting the RNC in its place.  Chairman Steele and the RNC just don't get it - on so many levels....